Yesterday’s Eurogroup meeting to discuss coronavirus economic rescue strategies showed little progress, according to media reports. While finance ministers are agreed to the principle of doing something, how that will look is proving difficult. Yesterday’s sixteen-hour meeting came to an end with Italy and the Netherlands in disagreement over how any money might be applied.
The European Central Bank, meanwhile, has introduced a temporary easing of credit standards for banks to accept loans, meaning the ECB will accept government-guaranteed loans as collateral, in the hope of keeping credit flowing to SMEs. Research by the Bank of Ireland shows that previous measures had already allowed Irish banks to increase their lending by €36 billion.
Meanwhile, Italian industrial production has shown a further drop, while German imports and exports also dropped, according to figures released early this morning.
Although these results will largely be expected by the markets at this time and be priced in, they do provide some hint of how the recovery will be once this pandemic is over – fears of which could make investors cautious.
