MADRID | By Julia Pastor | The European banking sector needed to regain markets’ confidence after the crisis and before November stress tests. On Monday, ECB’s vice-president Vitor Constancio assessed their moves as very positive, pointing to a compendium of sale of assets as well as capital and debt issues that reached €104 bn last year.
BARCELONA | Joan Tapia| That the Spanish economy grew by 0.4% quarterly in the 1Q14, and by 0.6% yearly is a real green shoot. After several years of recession, GDP is to grow moderately, around 1% in year 2014. However, employment continued falling by 184,000 people, at an annual pace of 0.5%. A slap in the face for those who told the recovery was more intense than expected.
ATHENS | By Macropolis | Greek building activity (as measured by the number of building permits) retained on a downward curve for the third straight month in February, retreating by 20.7 percent according to the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT).
FRANKFURT | By Lidia Conde | Experts don’t agree about what can happen in the short and medium term in the Eurozone. The main critical voice is the president of Munich’s Ifo Institut, Hans-Werner Sinn, who believes that Europe is in a “resting phase” before the storm hits again. According to Germany, now is the time of the “Draghilogists”, i.e. those analysts who try to elucidate the ECB’s next step.
MADRID | By Julia Pastor | For the first time European citizens will elect the successor of the European Commision’s president Jose Manuel Durão Barroso. The upcoming elections of May 25 will have two candidates, one for the socialist party, Martin Schulz, and another for the conservatives, Jean-Claude Juncker. This change of direction is not the result of a reform or a pact in the back room but of a consensus decision. Hopefully, the US could no longer say they don’t have a European direct interlocutor.
BERLIN | By Alberto Lozano | It’s not all about the deficit. If the eurozone wants to achieve the goal of sustainable growth, Germany also needs to shorten its chronic current account surplus, the world’s largest, which has led the country to accumulate capitals abroad amounting 100% of its GDP. Although this means dismissing one its economic miracle recipes -wage moderation-, Merkel will increase public workers’ salaries by 3% this year, +3X inflation.
BRUSSELS | By Jacobo de Regoyos | The euro zone’s GDP is to grow by 1.2% in 2014 and by 1.7% in 2015, the European Commission forecasts, while the whole of the EU will do by 1.6% and 2%, respectively. Even if Brussels rather thinks recovery is firmly rooted and it must protect it from gloomy predictions, the truth is that last data are showing an economy that is not really taking-off.
ATHENS | By Macropolis |The crisis appears to have led to a substantial reduction in petty corruption, with its overall cost halving over the last five years, a recent survey conducted by Public Issue for Transparency International has found.
MADRID | By Julia Pastor | Barclays will create a ‘bad bank’ for non strategic assets such as the Spanish retail banking business, which it intends to get rid of. The British entity arrived to Spain only 40 years ago and became the country’s fifth bank as well as the biggest foreign one. It was severily battered by the crisis, but the difficulties to take profit of its Spain’s investments- they purchased the medium size Banco Zaragozano at €1.1 bn in 2003- and also to win market share from the solid national banking industry’s position are other factors to be considered.
ATHENS | By Yiannis Mouzakis via Macropolis | This is the total amount of money that has left German coffers since the Greek crisis started in 2010. It corresponds to Germany’s portion of the European Stability Mechanism’s (ESM) paid in capital, which was announced on May 1 as the fund reached its full capital amount following the transfer of five installments since the end of 2012. Germany’s participation in the euro crisis mechanisms, aside from the ESM paid in capital, has been in the form of guarantees. It all started with the bilateral loans to Greece which every country apart from Germany provided directly. Berlin only gave state guarantees to its AAA-rated development bank KfW. The German taxpayer did not have to bear any cost for this transaction.