MADRID | March 1, 2015 | By Sean Duffy | With positive figures being returned on a weekly basis from the Spanish Finance Ministry, Spain appears to have turned a corner in its quest for financial recovery. Yet while the figures are good news for policy makers, the lingering pall of high unemployment continues to cast a shadow over growth prospects.
The Corner | February 27, 2015 | Inflation edged up in January, but the figures are unlikely to stop increasingly confident Spanish consumers from spending.
The Corner | February 26, 2015 | Markets will be closely observing a swathe of data from the EU after positive figures from Germany and Spain. The consumer and business confidence indexes and the industrial and economic sentiment surveys are due to be published later this morning.
The Corner | February 25, 2015 | European banks will have to raise more and better quality capital to meet the single supervisor’s requirements, ECB’s Danièle Nouy warned on Tuesday, since the absence of a common regulation is one of the industry’s main challenges. “That would be positive for Spanish banks since regulation in our country is one of the strictest in Europe,” experts at ACF commented.
ATHENS | By Nick Malkoutzis via MacroPolis | Is Friday’s agreement at the Eurogroup a good deal for Greece? In some respects it is but in more respects it is not. Above all, the four-month agreement leaves Greece walking an economic and political tightrope over the next four months without knowing what lies at the end of it.
NEW YORK | By Peter Tchir via Truman | Much has been made of the “Game Theory” behind the Greek Debt Negotiations. It is complex as it is not just Greece versus Germany, but other countries have a say, and then there are the purely EU level politicians, making this all very complex. I have been thinking a lot about one of the classes I took in college that had some element of “Game Theory” to it.
MADRID, February 23,2015 | By JP Marín Arrese | The agreement reached on Friday averted a full-fledged crisis but did not dispel mutual mistrust and acrimony. EU partners remain far from convinced the Hellenic government will honour its commitments. Irritation accumulated in the days following the deal, which Mr Schäuble underlined with his the grossly impolite and scathing remarks that “ Greeks certainly will have a difficult time to explain the deal to their voters”. This acrimonious climate points to further clashes flaring in future. The last-minute truce will not entail a stable peace.
MADRID, February 23, 2015 | By Sean Duffy | Friday´s deal was a relief for all involved, yet it remains to be seen if a frantic weekend of number cruncing from Greek officials will meet the strict criteria outlined in the agreement. German bank Berenberg cut the chances of a Grexit to 25% from 35% on Monday.
By Alexandre Mato in BRUSSELS & Sean Duffy in MADRID | A day of hard negotiations finally produced a positive outcome.Greece will work throughout the weekend to ready proposals for Monday´s meeting, but politicans were visibly relieved after an arduous week.
Via www.macropolis.gr | By Yiannis Mouzakis & Nick Malkoutzis | With talks surrounding a bailout extension ongoing, it is time to set the record straight about some of the myths that surround the Greek narrative.