*Plamen Tonchev via Macropolis | Since 2008, the increasingly close ties between Greece and China have caught the attention of the world media and there has been plenty of speculation about where this ‘romance’ is heading. Last October, the Athens-based Institute of International Economic Relations (IIER) undertook to delve into the intricate way China is perceived in Greece and the underlying causes behind this relationship.
Europe represents more than a third of global investment in Industry 4.0, and the countries of western and northern Europe are the principle markets, especially Germany. On the other hand, the leading European car makers are already investing in their businesses with the objective of electrifying their fleets.
To advance towards banking union it is necessary to reduce systemic risk, and the quality not just the level of capital is ever more important. The most important risks associated with the banking sector remain the ratio of NPLs (non-performing loans) and the exposure to sovereign debt, according to analysts at Morgan Stanley.The European banks have made significant efforts to improve the quality of their assets.
According to a report about dividends from Allianz Global Investors, European companies have an investor-friendly dividend policy compared to their international peers. At the end of December 2018, their average dividend yield across all market segments (based on MSCI Europe) was around 3.8 %.
The two largest Italian banks, despite various efforts by their management teams to sanitise their balance sheets, seem to be suffering from the “Italian risk” by association. In opinion of experts at Banco Santander, this specific risk is exaggerated, and the current depressed valuation is an opportunity to buy.
Last Tuesday in the city of Aachen, Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel signed a treat to give a new impulse to the EU. This is heir to the Elysee Treaty that was signed by Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer in 1963. The German-French alliance may not be important in terms of political convergence, but the economic reality of globalisation has already achieved it with listed shares.
The National Commission for Markets and Competition (CNMC) and its French counterpart, the Energy Regulation Commission (CRE), have rejected the Step project, one of the key phases of MidCat, the main gas interconnection project between France and Spain. Valued at some €3 Bn, it was called on to play a key role in the reconfiguration of the energy geopolitics of the EU.
Lidia Conde (Frankfurt) | All the labour market data in the country are brilliant. Since 2007 it has gone from 40.3 million people in work to 45.2 million in 2019 (45.5 in 2020). In ten years Germany has gone from 8.6% unemployment to 3.1%. There is even a shortage of skilled labour. And its citizens are happier than ever with their quality of life.
Theresa May wants to secure an orderly withdrawal from the EU (she was a lukewarm remainer in the Brexit referendum). But she also wants to hold her political party together. She does not want to be the Prime Minister which breaks the Conservative Party. Above all she does not want to be the new Ramsay MacDonald, the first Labour Prime Minister in 1924, who saved the national economy, but split the party.
Today the proposal of the British government will be known, although we do not know it will be a text agreed with the opposition , which insists it will not negotiate unless Theresa May renounces a no-deal Brexit. The UK is the fourth largest destination for Spanish exports. And the main foreign recipient of investment, so a hard Brexit would do significant damage to the country. All Spanish companies with presence in the UK have been discounting complicated scenarios since 2016.