Alexandre Mato (Brussels) | The new EU strategy against climate change seeks to reduce CO2 emissions by 40% before 2030, at the same time as modernising the continent´s economy and creating thousands of jobs.
Alexandre Mato (Bruselas) | Brussels recently announced the creation of the Innovation Funds with 10 billion euros to invest up until 2030 in green technologies to support the European energy transition.
Intermoney | The president of the ECB opened the door to further stimulus if the economic and inflation perspectives in the Eurozone remain low, in the shadow of a scenario dominated by downside risks for activity. In fact, he recalled that “there is no lack of instruments” to fulfill his mandate, at the same time as he is contemplating new delays in raising interest rates. Textually he said: “we are assured that monetary policy continues to accompany the economy, adjusting our orientation on interest rates to reflect the new inflation perspectives”.
Dimitris Smyrnakis via Macropolis | Following January’s five-year bond issuance, which raised 2.5 billion, along with Moody’s upgrading the country’s sovereign credit rating to B3 from B1 and Fitch’s confirming its own rating at BB-, last Tuesday Greece issued its first 10-year bond since the country entered the debt crisis nine years ago.
via European Views | Big tech and Internet freedom activists have remained staunchly opposed to the new EU Copyright Directive.
Fernando G. Urbaneja | Deutsche Welle’s Tim Sebastian drove Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell furious with very incisive, very biased and very provocative questions, repeatedly questioning the independence of the Spanish justice. However, Mr Borrell was not ready nor prepared to prove that Spanish democracy is a mature and advanced one.
The market has scarcely contemplated the possibility of a major fiscal stimulus in the Eurozone. However, the strategists at Morgan Stanley believe that, after two years marked by a restrictive fiscal policy, we could see the largest fiscal stimulus of the last decade, not through a common plan, but rather through national level initiatives, especially in Germany, France, Italy and Spain.
Alicia Garcia Herrero (Natixis/Bruegel) | Only a few days before Li Keqiang’s official visit to Brussels for the EU-China summit on April 2019, Xi Jinping has conducted his second trip to Southern Europe in only five months. Such a keen interest in Southern Europe is hard to understand, especially if one considers that Chinese high level officials are busy negotiating with the US to reach a deal to halt the trade war.
Juan J. Fdez-Figares | The catalysts for the new flight from risk was the publication on Friday in the Eurozone and its two principal economies, France and Germany, of various advanced indices for activity in March, what are known as the PMIs, which were well below that expected by analysts.
Santander Research | The performance of the Eurozone economy in 2018 was far from meeting expectations. Having exceeded expectations in 2017, with GDP growth yoy of 2.5% – the strongest since the 3.1% in 2007 – the economy registered a strong slowdown in 2018 with caused up to a 1.8% fall yoy in GDP. Although, probably, the growth levels of 2017 were not sustainable – taking into account the economic fundamentals of the Eurozone and the performance of the rest of the world – , the economic slowdown was strong, especially in the second half of 2018. In quarterly terms, GDP went from growing a quarterly average of o.7% in 2017 to only 0.4% in the first half of 2018 and a quarterly average of 0.2% in 2018.