New governments in Europe are being handed a poisoned chalice. They are being elected with mandates for change, but only limited means at their disposal to enact it, according to a Wall Street Journal commentary. Public debt is close to multidecade highs on both sides of the English Channel, where voters this week were electing new parliaments. In both France and the U.K., government spending and budget deficits as a share of gross domestic product are significantly above prepandemic levels.
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Resources Per Country
- Albania
- Austria
- Belarus
- Belgium
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Bulgaria
- Croatia
- Czech Republic
- Denmark
- Estonia
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- Gibraltar
- Greece
- Guernsey
- Hungary
- Iceland
- Ireland
- Isle of Man
- Italy
- Jersey
- Kosovo
- Latvia
- Liechtenstein
- Lithuania
- Luxembourg
- Macedonia
- Malta
- Moldova
- Monaco
- Montenegro
- Netherlands
- Norway
- Poland
- Portugal
- Romania
- Russia
- San Marino
- Serbia
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- Spain
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- Ukraine
- United Kingdom
- Vatican City
An Austrian court has thrown a wrench in attempts to restructure Signa Prime Selection AG, saying a creditor-backed plan to sell property held by Rene Benko’s flagship unit was “obviously not feasible,” Bloomberg News reported. The Vienna Higher Regional Court’s decision — which can be appealed — overruled an earlier approval of the plan, which envisions a protracted wind-down of the company under the supervision of a trustee.
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Hungary’s stocks and currency fell after Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government again resorted to its tactic of imposing special taxes on banks and other industries to plug gaps in its budget, Bloomberg News reported. It plans to keep current levels of windfall taxes on banks, energy and foreign-owned companies, despite earlier promises to lower them, Cabinet Minister Gergely Gulyas said on Monday. He said the measures would net the budget an additional 400 billion forint ($1.1 billion).
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Bank of England policy maker Jonathan Haskel signaled that he will vote to leave interest rates at a 16-year high in his final meeting next month, warning that a “tight and impaired” labor market will keep inflation too high, Bloomberg News reported. The official — who finishes his term on the Monetary Policy Committee at the end of August — said that he needs to see more evidence that underling price pressures are receding before backing cuts despite “encouraging signs” on inflation.
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German industrial production slumped in May as car manufacturing tailed off, after an uptick in the sector at the start of this year faded away, the Wall Street Journal reported. Industrial output declined 2.5% on month in May, on a seasonally and calendar-adjusted basis, much weaker than the 0.1% increase in April, German statistics agency Destatis said Friday. Production increased at the beginning of 2024, helping Europe’s largest economy to grow 0.2% in the first quarter after a significant contraction late last year.
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Britain’s Labour Party is back in government for the first time since 2010 and has promised to hit the ground running with its plan to fix the economy. First it needs to find the money, according to a Bloomberg News analysis. On some problems, incoming Prime Minister Keir Starmer may try to play for time by pushing out big decisions to next year. But many crises are so acute there’ll be no choice but to tackle them immediately. In particular, a series of tricky short-term decisions await on public sector pay, fuel duties, and healthcare and prison funding.
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Skaginn3X, which specialized in the production of advanced equipment for fish processing and was one of the largest employers in the town of Akranes, has filed for bankruptcy, the Iceland Review reported. Some 128 employees will now lose their jobs, RÚV reports. Vilhjálmur Birgisson, director of the Akranes Trade Union, wrote the following message on his social media today, following meetings wtih the fish processing company. His message has been translated and excerpted below. “Skaginn3X has requested to be taken into bankruptcy proceedings.
The story of electric vehicle (EV) maker Fisker continues with its latest chapter: the filing for bankruptcy by its Norwegian subsidiary, as revealed by Norway’s Brønnøysund Register Center, EV reported. This follows the recent bankruptcy of the company’s subsidiary in Austria, where all the vehicles were manufactured at Magna’s plant in Graz. Egil Hatling, the head of restructuring at global law firm DLA Piper, has been appointed as the bankruptcy trustee, as initially reported by local media outlet Tek.
Over the course of the election campaign, the main parties have argued furiously about trivialities and crafted photo ops straight out of the Tony Blair playbook, yet there is an ugly truth lurking behind this election: Britain is far closer to bankruptcy than our political elites are willing to admit, according to a commentary in The Telegraph. Worse still, no one even wants to talk about it. Now that the campaign is over, it is worth casting a glance at the statistics that really matter. Unfortunately, they make for sobering reading.
The European Union gave Deutsche Lufthansa its conditional approval to buy a minority stake in ITA Airways, the Italian carrier formerly known as Alitalia, bolstering the German carrier group’s reach in Europe and its exposure to the lucrative Italian market, the Wall Street Journal reported. The European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, said its approval was conditional upon full compliance with remedies offered by Lufthansa and Italy’s economy and finance ministry to address concerns from competition officials over the deal’s impact on short- and long-haul routes.