This news to the effect that German consumers actually reduced their outstanding debt is deeply significant in my view. What it reflects is what needs to be analysed:
“German private households ignored the attractions of historically-low interest rates and for the first time paid back more money than they borrowed last year.
The net credit repayment reported [...]

Brad Delong has an interesting link on how stock markets react to changes in demand demographics.

Italy posted a trade deficit with the rest of the world of 1.354 billion euros in April, widening sharply from a deficit of 155 million euros in the same month of 2004, national statistics office ISTAT said on Thursday. The deficit also increased from March, when it stood at 845 million euros.
Trade with European Union [...]

Far away from the hassle and turbulence of Turkey’s EU membership application is that other Turkey, the one that is growing and expanding, the economic Turkey. This time it’s cars:

“With a cluster of carmakers and part suppliers, the Turkish automotive sector has reached a critical mass and become an integral part of the global network [...]

I don’t have time to go into this much further right now, but Spain’s Current Account Deficit is ballooning enormously. According to figures realesed by the Bank of Spain today, Spain?s trade deficit increased to 6.56 billion euros in March. The deficit was up from 4.0 billion euros in the same month a year earlier. [...]

This article asks an interesting question: is the Czech economy becoming too dependent on the car indusrty?
Helena Horsk?, an economist at Raiffeisenbank, said a concentration of investment in one industrial sector could be dangerous. One of the biggest risks, she said, is that as the economy becomes more reliant on the automotive sector, ?the economy [...]

Italy is now officially in recession. The economy contracted by 0.5% in the firts quarter (an annual rate of 2%) as exports plummeted 4.1%. This is not simply cyclical, Italy is structurally in recession, and it is difficult to see how they can get out of it.

I don’t suppose that there is any connection with the recent Chinese appetite for purchasing cars, but apparently China and Vietnam are about to be accused of dumping their unwanted bicycles on Europe:
The European Union is expected to levy next month swingeing anti-dumping tariffs on bicycle imports from China and Vietnam in an attempt to [...]

According to NTCResearch:
Inflation in Germany rose less than previously thought in May, the Federal Statistics Office reported on Thursday. Germany’s harmonised index of consumer prices rose 0.2 percent month-on-month and 1.4 percent year on year, compared with initially reported rates of 0.3 percent and 1.5 percent, the Office said. Meanwhile, it was revealed today that [...]

According to data released today the Czech economy is still growing at a fair clip - by 4.4% year on year. Inflation is low at 1.3% (incredibly low, and his marks already an important difference with the Southern Europe countries). Unemployment is coming down too, although it is still pretty high at 9.4%. Exports to [...]