European Economy

European Q1 GDP data came out overnight.

Cross-posted from the excellent Sober Look: As discussed earlier, Greek exit from the Eurozone may be the only way the nation could gain some control over its monetary system.

And so the black cygnets waddle from the shadows again. Over the weekend, Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats suffered an 8.3% swing in North Rhine-Westphalia as the Social democrats (SDP) and the Greens garnered a majority.

by David Llewellyn-Smith Ten years of running The Diplomat magazine, and following many civil and military conflicts in detail, taught me one very important lesson about political economy.

The May monthly bulletin from the ECB came out last night covering March data.

Overnight, Greek Leftist leader, Alexis Tsipras, gave up on his attempts, or at least pretence of them, to form government.

Given the Australian Budget overnight I didn’t have time to spend on Europe’s events this morning.

Back in early February I wrote a post about 2 key things that I was watching out for in Europe that I thought the economic world was underestimating the impact of.

Last night the ECB met in Barcelona and once again held on rates.

Another night of Eurozone PMI data, this time manufacturing, and, much the same as last time, the news was not good at all.

Over the weekend French Presidential candidate, and current front-runner, Francios Hollande gave a speech to his faithful.

Overnight the president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, gave a speech to the Hearing at the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of the European Parliament.

Another evening of Purchasing Manager Index (PMI) data from the Eurozone.

Back in December last year while discussing the ongoing woes of Europe, I suggested that the fiscal compact may never actually be enacted because attempts to do so would have such a disastrous outcome that European nations will inevitably give up.

Overnight Spain managed to sell €3.18 billion worth of bills which was ahead of the target of €3 billion.

Sorry for the lateness of this post, one of those days I’m afraid.

There seems to be a pattern emerging as stressed Eurozone nations struggle against the austerity based policy that slowly strangles them.

So I return after the Easter break to find Europe in much the same shape as when I last saw it, with one minor difference.

Recently there has been mounting evidence that although the ECB’s 3 year LTRO has been successful in both supporting sovereign bonds and banking system recapitalisation, it is failing to restart lending in the private sector.

There was a barrage of data out of Europe overnight with the major flow being manufacturing purchasing managers indexes – PMI.

The pain in Spain continues with the government releasing the country’s latest budget which has been described by some Spanish economists as ‘the most severe since Franco’: Spain’s government has announced $36 billion in new budget cuts, as it attempts to reassure the European Union that it will not need a financial bailout.