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pedro sanchez reflexiona

Relevant News Item 1st March 2022

Sánchez Rules Out Sending Arms Directly To Ukraine And Avoids Clarifying Whether It Is An Imposition From Podemos

Spain, after being one of the last European countries to close its airspace to Russian airlines, will limit the sending of offensive weapons to Ukraine just to the agreement adopted by the European Union. It does not plan to increase the defence budget, as other EU governments will do in response to the Russian invasion of Ukrainian territory. This was announced on Monday by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, in an…

Putin

European politics 25th February 2022

Putin, The Bully, Unmasks Himself

Fernando González Urbaneja | Russian journalist Masha Gessen wrote a biography of Putin ten years ago (“The Man Without a Face” Debate) which was recommended reading then and even more so now. In chapter 3 (Autobiography of a Thug) she sketches the character that Putin’s unofficial biographers did not hesitate to highlight when praising his character. During his youth in Leningrad (now and formerly St. Petersburg) he behaved like a…

Rusia Ukrainewar

World economy 25th February 2022

Rusia Invades Ukraine Damging The Global Economy

Tatiana Orlova (Oxford Economics) | In the early hoursoftoday, Russian military forces attacked military targets across Ukraine. Border guards reported that Ukraine’s territory was being shelled from five regions, including Crimea and Belarus. Due to events over the past 24 hours, with Russia now intent on installing a “friendly” government in Ukraine, we have moved our global baseline in line with our scenario for a full-scale invasion. Although a protracted…

french interconexion

European economy 18th February 2022

Europe’s Natural Gas Stores Are At Around 33.83% Of Their Capacity; Germany Is At 32.77% And Spain At 58.36%

Intermoney | The EU is the area that would be worst off in the event of a war in Ukraine. At this point, it is worth remembering that Russia was the first supplier of the EU in terms of energy raw materials in a normal year such as 2019. In that year, 46.7% of the EU’s imports of solid fuels (i.e. coal), 41.1% of those related to natural gas and…

zew

Markets 16th September 2014

Morning coffee: Germany’s ZEW, UK inflation, and much more

MADRID | The Corner | Don’t expect big changes in stock markets’ behaviour today: everyone is waiting for the main events of the week, that is, any move from the US Federal Reserve (FOMC meeting ends on Wednesday) and the Scotland referendum on Thursday. Just note that Germany is releasing ZEW index today, which gauges big investors and analysts’ confidence in the EU’s main economy. In the UK we’ll have consumer prices for August.

 

russia

World economy 7th September 2014

In depth- Russia: sanctions for peace

BRUSSELS | By Jacobo de Regoyos | Europe’s 28 have unanimously requested at their recent summit to the Commission to prepare new economic sanctions against Russia, which will be triggered if the tension in Eastern Ukraine is not reduced. “Further significant steps,” is written on the statement. But nobody really knows how far can go the difficult consensus knitting machine that the European Union has become, divided between the dread to Russia felt by Eastern countries and the economic interests that grip the continental West. (Note from the editor: The cartoon above was published in Chinese official newspaper China Daily).

No Picture

Markets 18th August 2014

Markets welcome Eurozone economic ‘bad news’

MADRID | By J. J. Fdez-Figares (LINK) | Stock markets face today a new week in which geopolitical conflicts, especially in Ukraine, and macroeconomic data that will be announced during the day will monopolize the attention of investors. Although we expect trading volumes remain low, typical of summer dates, we do expect a slight rise in volatility, especially given the current stage of confusion, both in the geopolitical and economic environment that financial markets are facing.

ForeignTradeStart06

In Europe 8th August 2014

Germany’s domestic demand might be taking the helm

BERLIN | By Alberto Lozano | At the end of the week, good news are coming from Germany’s trade data. After calendar and seasonal adjustment, German imports rose by 4.5% on the month, rebounding from a sharp fall in May (-3.4%) with the highest month-on-month increase since November 2010. In addition, German exports increased by 0.9%, narrowing the criticised surplus to 16.2 billion euros from 18.8 billion the previous month.