Following the turbulent river of news which has flowed unrelentingly through the principal European media outlets since Sunday night, today we seem to be swimming in a relative ocean of calm. This is very deceptive. Today the Netherlands is voting and tomorrow the ECB will have a closely watched meeting which may potentially have significant [...]

Having just posted on Afoe suggesting I expect a quieter day, I have just noticed this:
“The euro fell against the dollar after the manufacturing report. The European single currency traded at $1.2285 at 10:15 a.m. in Frankfurt, down from $1.2304 late yesterday in New York, according to electronic foreign-exchange dealing system EBS.”
Still this fits in [...]

The Washington Times (of all places) carries a UPI text about a Deutsch Bank research note on the economic consequences of the French ‘no’:
“France’s rejection of the European Union constitutional treaty by a majority of 54.9 percent is a severe blow to European integration and threatens to depress European economy back into eurosclerosis as in [...]

The euro fell to a seven-month low in Asia and had the biggest fluctuation of any currency on concern the rejection of a proposed European Union constitution will slow the region’s economic integration…………
Against the dollar, the euro fell to $1.2370, the lowest since Oct. 14. It bought $1.2390 at 2:05 p.m. in Tokyo from $1.2475 [...]

What, you may ask, has Italian government debt got to do with the French ‘no’ vote: everything would be my answer. (If you want to know more about this, thumb down my euro posts). The lack of a convincing advance towards political union makes Italian government debt riskier, so they have to pay more interest. [...]

I missed this at the time, but apparently officials responsible for monetary policy in the Czech Republic are begining to have second thoughts about joining the euro.
“Czech central bank policy maker Robert Holman said the government should abandon plans to adopt the euro by 2010 because joining the single currency may stifle growth, the first [...]

The euro continues its fall against the dollar today after yet another opinion poll showed French opposition to the European Union constitution continues to strengthen before Sunday’s referendum. Against the dollar, the euro fell to $1.2545 at 8:33 a.m. in London, from $1.2601 late yesterday in New York. The euro wasn’t [...]

A right royal row is brewing at the ECB. Basically the old guard theorists of the ‘one size fits all’ monetary policy are being challenged by more pragmatic observers of day to day realities. For the moments it is the politicians who are making the running (but there are plenty of competent economists in Germany [...]

The euro reached its lowest level against the dollar in seven months last week dropping from a valueof $1.311 a month ago to $1.255 on Friday. This was the lowest level since last October. Undoubtedly there are a confluence of factors at work here: yesterday’s French growth numbers, longer term stagnant growth [...]

Dutch Finance Minister Gerrit Zalm is in the news again. Last time I read about him it was because he had started a weblog. This time the issue is different: he describes himself as being “totally fed up” with the fact the Dutch public thinks that it was effectively robbed by the way the [...]