On 7 June 2022, Luigi Federico Signorini, Senior Deputy Governor of Banca d’Italia, gave an opening speech at the 17th Meeting of the Ottawa Group on Price Indices. It is my privilege to welcome you to the 17th Meeting of the Ottawa Group, jointly organised by the Banca d’Italia and Istat. As you know, the meeting should have taken place two years ago. However, the health emergency hit just before the scheduled date and we had to change our plans. I am very pleased that we are now here together and ready for a fresh start. The issues that will be discussed during the next few days are, of course, the centre of attention of consumer price experts and central bankers. Many of these issues, however, are also of great interest to the public at large, such as how to account for new consumption trends; how to handle (and benefit from) digitalisation; how to develop more comprehensive measures of the cost of living, especially ones encompassing housing costs. This, I think, makes your work particularly valuable. Continue reading…

by Daniel Vaknine

A number of global and large national companies already have centralised group-wide reporting systems in place and have relied on the adequacy of this global solution after 17 December 2021, when the new EU Whistleblowing Directive entered (or was supposed to enter) into force. The European Commission has however clearly rejected this interpretation. Continue reading…

The judicial authorities of Estonia, Latvia and Slovakia will become members of the joint investigation team (JIT) on alleged core international crimes, which has been set up with the support of Eurojust. The Prosecutors General of the three EU Member States signed an agreement to join the JIT, together with their counterparts from Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine, during a coordination meeting hosted by Eurojust on May 30 and the following day. The JIT was set up on 25 March by Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine, and the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) became a participant last month. Continue reading…

by Daniel Vaknine

Employees play a key role in an organisation’s well-being. As we all know, it is they who make the organisation work. If the employees in an organisation are dissatisfied or experience injustices in the workplace, it can have major negative effects, ranging from lack of motivation and lack of results to enormous negative media attention or lost partners. A critical component in the well-being of employees is the possibility of whistleblowing. Historically, there have often been situations where people are afraid of being singled out as whistleblowers, either for fear of retaliation, special treatment or getting rid of their jobs. Today, these are well-established facts amongst many within the risk and compliance industry. Continue reading…

by Lieve Lowet & Lorenz Van Roosbroeck

Having understood the social element of (un)sustainability, we tackle the second issue which advances the integrative understanding of the AAIEI over the disjointed logic present within ESG deliberations. In our March blog post, intergenerational equity was praised for its integrative element; it grasped environmental issues as a social issue. Instead, the dominant deliberative culture surrounding ESG tends to discuss environmental -and social issues in isolation of one another, which masks their interrelation. Here, the layered, relational aspect of sustainability is concealed, presenting it instead as an exercise in compliance. However, while it is practically important to respect the analytical distinction between society and nature, sustainability at large is only theoretically intelligible from the vantage point of their interrelation. Therefore, one has to open up the context of ESG, something which the AAIEI achieves. Continue reading…

In her speech at the Data Science Conference of the DNB Data Science Hub, Nicole Stolk addressed several preconditions for being a data-driven organisation. As one of the Executive Board Members of De Nederlandsche Bank, it is my pleasure to welcome you to Amsterdam and in particular to this conference. We have high hopes and feel this is an important and fruitful subject. Me being here goes beyond just delivering a few standard remarks. Becoming a data-driven organisation cannot be achieved overnight. It is a journey, and I have been traveling with you for quite some time. I am not a data scientist myself, but I do see the potential value of basing our policy decisions and supervision more firmly on data-driven analyses. But this value can only be realised if we are comfortable with using data science in our daily work. Part of this sense of comfort will come if we can change the way we work. This involves a marked culture change which could be the topic for the next conference.    Continue reading…

Dina-Perla Portnaar

A new European strategy for a Better Internet for Kids (BIK+) was adopted by the Commission to improve age-appropriate digital services and to ensure that every child is protected, empowered and respected online. Looking back at the last ten years, digital technologies and the way children use them have changed dramatically. Most children use their smartphones daily and almost twice as much compared to ten years ago. Children also use them from a much younger age (see EU Kids online 2020). Using all sorts of devices bring opportunities and benefits, allowing children to interact with others, learn online and be entertained. Yet these gains are not without risks, such as the dangers of exposure to disinformation, cyber bullying (see JRC study) or to harmful and illegal content, from which children need to be sheltered. Continue reading…

by Lieve Lowet & Lorenz Van Roosbroeck

In our March blog post we wrote about the Australian Actuaries Intergenerational Equity Index (AAIEI) for two main reasons. First of all, the index emphasises the issue of social sustainability — which, at present, tends to be overshadowed by the issue of environmental sustainability. Secondly, the AAIEI successfully reads environmental sustainability as something related to social sustainability. This was welcomed because of its break with the dominant deliberative culture surrounding ESG, where discussions deal with environmental -and social issues in isolation of one another, effectively masking their interrelation. This blogpost delves deeper into both matters from a more theoretical angle. Continue reading…

Last Thursday, the European Commission has published the tenth edition of the 2022 EU Justice Scoreboard, an established annual overview providing comparative data on the efficiency, quality and independence of justice systems in the Member States. For the first time, this year’s Scoreboard also includes data on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the efficiency of justice systems, as well as regarding accessibility to justice for persons with disabilities and with a strengthened business dimension. Vice-President for Values and Transparency, Věra Jourová, said: “The EU Justice Scoreboard provides invaluable insights into our justice systems and helps us place the focus where it matters most: ensuring that the rule of law is protected across the European Union. The fact that since last year the public perception of judicial independence has decreased in about half of Member States is concerning and shows that we all need to act to restore trust of the public in the judicial system.”
Continue reading…

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU securities markets regulator, has on April 29th advised the European Commission on certain aspects relating to retail investor protection. In the advice ESMA puts forward, proposals that will make it easier for investors to get the key information they need to take well-informed investment decisions, whilst also protecting them from aggressive marketing techniques and detrimental practices.  Continue reading…