European voters are angry. They are angry with the mainstream political parties, and in many countries delivered a stinging rebuke to the established order in the elections for the European Parliament. They are angry at years of austerity and low (or negative) growth, and voted in large numbers for fringe parties that say the EU is to blame.
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The Dutch are known for their candor. This openness even extends to the ostensibly secret act of voting in national elections. Tweeting selfies while voting became something of a phenomenon during municipal elections in March. When subsequently asked to clarify the law on taking photos in the voting booth, Dutch courts gave it their blessing (link in Dutch), as long as the photo is of your own ballot and not somebody else’s.
As Thailand goes from “it’s not a coup” to “of course it’s a coup,” Thai newspapers are struggling under the load of web users trying to figure out what’s going on. Though it’s worth trying the The Nation or the Bangkok Post, readers may have better luck with this brief list of options for following the news as it breaks.
Can you sense the excitement? Voting is underway for the European Parliament, with polls in Britain and the Netherlands taking place today. The bulk of the EU votes on Sunday (May 25), so the results for the 751-seat parliament won’t be known until then. Only the Dutch will release exit polls before voting closes in the EU’s 27 other member states.
Russian president Vladimir Putin is in Shanghai, with the primary goal of signing a long-negotiated deal to supply China with natural gas. The news just came through that the deal is apparently done, with Russia agreeing to deliver 38 billion cubic meters of gas per year, for 30 years. The pricing is not yet available, but indications are that the deal is worth about $400 billion.
If you have £459,000 ($773,000) to spare or a healthy appetite for debt, property in London is for you. That’s the current average price for a home in the British capital, according to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics. That’s an increase of 17% over the past year, or £61,000 in absolute terms, versus 5% and £9,000 in the rest of the country.
Just as markets were digesting the $2.6 billion penalty imposed on Credit Suisse for helping American clients avoid taxes, news from Brussels suggests that yet another big fine is looming for a few other banking giants. Today the European Commission accused JPMorgan, HSBC, and Crédit Agricole with rigging euro interest rates, alleging that they acted in a cartel to manipulate Euribor, a key interbank lending rate.
The last time we checked in with Club Med, things weren’t going so well. Six months later, the story is much the same. The venerable French resort operator recently reported that profit in the first half of its current fiscal year dropped by 10%, and the second half isn’t looking so great: summer bookings over the past eight weeks are down 16% from the same period last year.
The numbers: Not great, at first glance. Low-cost airline Ryanair reported its first fall in profit for five years, as lower fares, currency movements, and fuel costs weighed on earnings in its latest fiscal year (ending in March).
Although Portugal is about to mark a major milestone, few are in a celebratory mood. The country will exit its international bailout tomorrow, the second euro zone country after Ireland to do so.
Even by the low standards that market watchers have come to expect, the latest data out of the euro zone is disappointing. GDP grew by a meager 0.2% in the first quarter, the statistics agency reported today (pdf). Analysts expected growth twice as fast, which was already a pretty low bar.
Britain’s buoyant economy is a headache for some. Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England (pictured above), has described it as a good problem to have, but a problem nonetheless.
The motto of today’s annual meeting of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development was “Changing Economies, Changing Lives.” But many of the recent changes in Eastern Europe, where the EBRD operates, haven’t been for the better.
Russian president Vladimir Putin revived the Czarist era term for a broad swath of southeastern Ukraine, Novorossiya, in a high-profile television appearance last month. “God knows” why Russia gave up the territory in 1920, he sighed.
Google and other search engines routinely field takedown requests to remove material from results that violates copyright, defamation, and other laws. But a ruling today (pdf) by the European Union’s highest court will now require them to consider takedown requests for material that is merely embarrassing or inconvenient, rather than illegal.
Barclays dropped a bombshell on its investment bankers last week. Amid a general retreat by banks from bond trading and other volatile business lines, Barclays was particularly aggressive.
It’s been an eventful day. Two large regions in Ukraine’s industrial east declared their independence, refused to participate in the upcoming Ukrainian presidential election, and asked to join Russia instead. Russia said it “respects” the result of the referendums on independence and could end up absorbing the territories, like it did with Crimea. The European Union, citing the “absence of any steps toward de-escalation,” imposed a new round of sanctions (pdf) on Russian officials and, for the first time, companies.
As if there was ever any doubt, huge majorities apparently voted in favor of self-rule in yesterday’s referendum in the eastern Ukrainian oblasts (regions) of Donetsk and Luhansk. Representatives of the pro-Russian groups said that some 90% of voters in Donetsk and 96% in Luhansk voted in favor of independence. Turnout was 70-80%, they said.
It took advertising groups Publicis and Omnicom nine months to decide that they wouldn’t merge after all. The post-mortem on the aborted deal has begun to play out in the media and the markets. Omnicom CEO John Wren, in a conference call with analysts today, pithily summed up the obstacles as follows:
The $35 billion merger of advertising giants Publicis and Omnicom is no more. The companies called off the deal late last night in a terse statement (pdf), saying that despite the botched combination they “maintain a great respect for one another.”
Mario Draghi has a way with words. Traders pore over the remarks of any prominent central banker, of course, but few conduct policy almost exclusively via turns of phrase like the president of the European Central Bank.
From beer to banks to bars of soap, European companies’ extensive exposure to the Russian economy was evident today, as some of the firms with the deepest ties reported their latest quarterly earnings, and CEOs lamented the damage wrought by the sputtering, sanctions-threatened Russian market.
German luxury carmaker BMW reported new sales and profit records in its latest quarterly results, thanks to the steady rollout of well-received new models. One of its highest-profile investments—a new line of electric-powered vehicles—generated only 2,000 unit sales, out of nearly 430,000 BMW-branded cars delivered during the quarter, but analysts are watching the BMWi series very closely. Some consider it the strongest competition yet for Tesla, the electric vehicle market leader.
