Internet - and working from home: Berlin, Lagos, Budapest: How fast is your internet?

Working from home can be a challenge in itself: no office chair, no canteen, no colleagues to chat with over coffee. But with the coronavirus here to stay for the foreseeable future, millions of people around the world have gotten used to sitting at the kitchen table just like Merguet to work on spreadsheets or take conference calls. But without a fast and reliable connection, slow downloads, choppy audio or video calls that keep freezing up can make life difficult for telecommuters.

Merguet isn't the only one who has had to wind down data-intensive tasks. Even in well-off countries like Germany, internet problems are common. DW used open-source data from M-Lab to compare the speed of internet connections around the globe. M-Lab collects data from many millions of speed tests that users perform every month.


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Berlin, Lagos, Budapest: How fast is your internet? | World| Breaking news and perspectives from around the globe | DW | 09.10.2020

ECB: Draghi asks for faster response of Eurozone governments to reforms

Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank (ECB) warns on lack of actions of Eurozone leaders at the Brussels Economic Forum.

Draghi asked the governments to act in all policy areas in order for stabilisation of the economy to occur. “In the euro area, many structural reforms have been implemented in recent years, and especially in those countries worst-hit by the crisis. The benefits can now be seen. But there are many more benefits still to aim for, and so much more needs to be done,” stressed Draghi.

As consolidation after 2010 in the area was implemented in some countries mainly through tax rises rather than current spending cuts, the full burden of macroeconomic stabilisation was placed on monetary policy, as Draghi suggests. “This has led to a slower return of output to potential than if fiscal policy had been more supportive. This is why the ECB has said many times that fiscal policy should work with not against monetary policy,” underlined the man responsible for the Euro area’s monetary policy.

“Supporting demand is not just a question of the budget balance, but also of its composition, especially the tax burden and the share of public investment,” he adds. “We should not see fiscal policy as solely a macroeconomic tool, which is only available to countries with strong public finances. We should also see it as a microeconomic policy tool that can enhance growth even when public finances need to be consolidated.”

Read more: Draghi asks for faster response of Eurozone governments to reforms