Euro weakened against the pound yesterday after figures showed business confidence plummeted an unexpected 0.22 points, despite a forecast of a slight improvement, perhaps down to the European Central Bank’s stimulus programme. However, although the overall figure of -0.28 is low, it is not as low as December 2019.
The ECB’s Luis de Guindos told the media on Monday that the ‘current shock [is] very different to eurozone debt crisis from a decade ago. Aid schemes applied then are now valid now’, but said that he would do everything possible to defend the euro. Meanwhile, the central bank has said that banks should suspend their dividends until at least October to prioritise ‘capital resources to support the real economy’.
Criticism has been rising in some quarters over how fragmented the European Union’s response has been to the coronavirus crisis, along national rather than European lines. France’s Amélie de Montchalin said earlier this week that ‘If Europe is just a single market when times are good, then it has no sense’. Her comments come after Germany and the Netherlands resisted a call from France, Italy, Spain and Portugal to issue joint bonds.
