EU Economic Update – 12 April 2015
Greece’s debt repayment schedule in focus ahead of ECB press conference
The European economic calendar was fairly quiet last week, with Spanish unemployment data being the only release of significance. This showed joblessness in Spain falling faster than expected in March.
Greece also made another loan payment to the IMF last week, one of approximately $500 million however, the country still has just over 3 billion euros worth of payments to make over the next four weeks.
This will certainly be enough to cripple the country and cause chaos if the nation fails to secure the release of further bailout funds sharply.
In short, time is now running out for the country and rather alarmingly, progress in negotiations appears to have stalled, while the nation’s relations with the group of European finance ministers is also deteriorating rapidly.
Although we still think that it is only a small one, there is a genuine risk of Greece crashing out of the euro zone under the stewardship of the Syriza party in the next 12 – 18 months.
Looking ahead, the main event for the week in Europe will be the ECB press conference on Wednesday where Mario Draghi is once again expected to signal that ECB QE is already working.
This could provide a boost to the euro as well as continental equity markets, although any positive sentiments emanating from this conference could still be overshadowed by the Greek conversation.
European Indices / Q1 2015
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