You're reading the Evening Briefing Europe newsletter.
You're reading the Evening Briefing Europe newsletter.
You're reading the Evening Briefing Europe newsletter.
Understand the most important stories of the day with context and analysis only Bloomberg can deliver.
Understand the most important stories of the day with context and analysis only Bloomberg can deliver.
Understand the most important stories of the day with context and analysis only Bloomberg can deliver.
As the Iran war stretches into a fourth week, the toll is hitting home in Europe.
Countries are slashing their expectations for output while bracing for an energy-driven upswing in prices, with the US-Israeli military campaign -- which is now all about the future of the Strait of Hormuz -- showing no sign of ending soon.
The upshot appears to be a partial return to policy settings used to vanquish the effects of the conflict in Ukraine. Households are being offered aid and central banks are pivoting toward interest-rate hikes.
While the fallout is already straining resource-hungry sectors -- including German chemical makers -- there's a danger it will spread more broadly as personal incomes are eroded.
More muted growth and faster inflation risk deepening industrial, fiscal and political pressures across the region.
All that was on the minds of euro area finance ministers today as they were briefed by International Energy Agency chief Fatih Birol, who suggested decoupling gas and power prices to limit the fallout, we're told.
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Ukraine risks running out of money to pay for its defense as myriad factors converge to threaten financial aid from key donors, who have helped keep it in the fight against Russia. Kyiv probably only has enough funds to cover spending until June, we're told.
Setbacks range from Hungary's veto of a €90 billion ($104 billion) EU loan to a spat over the International Monetary Fund's latest aid package and a faltering NATO weapons initiative.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy made a surprise visit to Saudi Arabia today, offering Ukraine's cheap but effective anti-drone technology in exchange for investments from the oil-rich nation.
Oil may hit a record $200 a barrel if the Iran war drags on till June, with the Strait of Hormuz staying shut, Macquarie said. A conflict stretching through the second quarter would result in historically high real prices, analysts including Vikas Dwivedi said in a note, outlining a scenario with odds of 40%. An alternative outlook, with probability of 60%, suggested the war may finish at the end of March, they said.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he won't be bullied by Donald Trump, in a further demonstration of how the US president's war on Iran has frayed the so-called special relationship between their two countries.
Trump has tried to strong-arm Starmer to change tack on issues, including the extraction of oil in the North Sea and the sovereignty of the Chagos Islands -- the site of a joint UK-US military base on Diego Garcia.
"I'm not going to be pushed around by other people," Starmer told the Electoral Dysfunction podcast. "I'm not going to be persuaded to do things that I don't think are right for our country."
Anthropic may go public as soon as in October. The artificial intelligence company is racing to hold an initial public offering with rival OpenAI, which has had early talks with Wall Street banks about taking leading roles on a potential listing, people told us. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley are expected to be in the running for key roles on both listings; deliberations at Anthropic are ongoing; a listing could raise more than $60 billion.
The aviation crisis starting to grip Asia is threatening to intensify and spread to Europe as energy turmoil caused by the Iran war collides with seasonal travel demand. The amount of jet fuel lost because of the conflict is too much for the world's refiners to offset. Airlines from Vietnam to New Zealand have started canceling flights as price surge to record highs, while China has curbed fuel exports to secure supplies. The EU and the UK could be weeks away from similar conditions as they depend on supplies from refineries inside the Persian Gulf.
Ethiopian police confiscated a truck-load of gasoline siphoned from a gas station in the capital, amid worsening fuel shortages across the Horn of Africa nation. People have been queuing for hours to fill their tanks in urban and rural areas, while heavy consumers are receiving rationed supply. The government has released some of its reserves and has asked everyone to prioritize essential-service vehicles after the Iran war sharpened longstanding issues around fuel shortages.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban spent the past 16 years perfecting what he calls an "illiberal laboratory" in Hungary. His grip on power is facing its most serious challenge yet ahead of the parliamentary election set for April 12, as voters frustrated by a stagnating economy, a cost-of-living crisis and corruption eye the conservative Tisza party. The ballot won't just be referendum on Orban's tenure and Hungary's future, though; it's also a geopolitical showdown between Russia and the West.
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