Emmanuel Macron’s success in the presidential elections has alleviated fears France might fall into the black pit of extremism. But he faces the huge task of delivering growth by sweeping reforms while preserving most of the current social model. A task that will prove elusive unless he secures solid parliamentary backing.
Nick Malkoutzis via Macropolis | In a sense, there is very little point in evaluating Greece’s agreement with its lenders. After all, it is not as if there were a variety of other options available.
For the AlphaValue coverage (478 European stocks, c. €9.5Tn market cap), the 2017 expected pay-out ratio should be about 56% but “only” 49% on a median basis, “ergo big earners pay out more” says analysts from the house. An 11-year history of this ratio would show that the gap between average and median is going up with some sort of a maximum reached in 2016.
Last week marked the last prime minister’s questions before the British election in June and seems a good place to examine the reasons Theresa May might be less secure that she seems. While her Conservative Party is 21 points ahead of Labour in the polls — its biggest lead in almost a decade — there are four reasons to doubt it will stay there.
After 2015′ s Greece referendum, Tsipras got an attack of the jitters, a possible coup d’etat was insinuated, so he decided to turn the sense of the referendum around, giving in unconditionally to the demands of the Brussels bureaucrats. If Marine Le Pen were to win the second round of Sunday’s French elections, would she give into pressure from inside and outside Europe to renounce her goal of getting rid of the euro?
With a very low jobless rate (5,8%), Germany is growing for the eighth year in a row. This is allowing it to attract capital and qualified workers. Even so, the future of the jobs market is a concern, and a key issue in this Autumn’s elections.
The surprisingly low annual eurozone inflation reading for March at 1.5% will finally end speculation about an earlier end to the negative deposit rate in today’s ECB’s governing council meeting, as reported by Julius Bär’s experts. Both ECB Chief Economist Peter Praet and ECB President Mario Draghi have already made clear in recent weeks that interest rates will not rise before the ECB’s asset-purchasing programme comes to an end.
European capitals have welcomed with relief Macron’s victory in the first round of the French elections. But even if Macron’s lead in the first round seems comfortable enough, support for extremist parties represents more than half of total votes. This could lead to unstability in the country which Macron will need to be able to control.
John Bruton | British Prime Minister Theresa May has decided to call an early election before the practical outworking of her Brexit strategy becomes obvious to voters. She wants to be free to modify her strategy, and needs a bigger parliamentary majority. She claims otherwise. Instead, May says she is calling the election because the other parties oppose her Brexit strategy. They don’t oppose it, actually. They have cooperated with it to a point that makes little of parliamentary sovereignty.