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Theresa May's "plan B", or "plan A bis", did not convince. The Prime Minister announced yesterday that she would return to Brussels this week to renegotiate the Brexit agreement, including new talks about the Irish border issue. "This is not the way forward", says the German Justice Minister, who said she was "disappointed" that Theresa May persists in trying to obtain new concessions from the Europeans. In any case, the minister responsible for the British withdrawal from the EU, Stephen Barclay, has admitted that London does not yet know what to ask its European counterparts. In her speech yesterday, May also pledged not to renegotiate the Northern Ireland Peace Agreement, and to be "more flexible" with Parliament regarding upcoming discussions on UK-EU relations.
Who will replace Draghi as head of the ECB? Mario Draghi's term of office will end on October 31. At the moment, four names stand out as potential candidates for his succession. They are Erkki Liikanen, current Governor of the Bank of Finland, Benoit Coeuré, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, François Villeroy de Galhau, Governor of the Banque de France, and Jens Weidmann, President of the Bank of Germany. He needs to be not too northern, not too southern, not too hawkish, not too dovish, but an excellent communicator: is the right person sitting in this quartet? A com' champion is all the more necessary because at the Davos Economic Forum, participants seem to want to force central banks to review the way they communicate to the markets on interest rate developments and their intentions ("forward guidance").
In other news. No surprises expected on Thursday for the first meeting of the year: the ECB is expected to maintain its key rates. In Spain, Inigo Errejon, the co-founder and current deputy of the anti-austerity political party "Podemos", resigns. At the beginning of February, the European Commission is expected to reduce its economic growth forecast for 2019 to 0.6% (currently 1.0%, and 1.2% last November) for Italy. Today, it is exactly one month since the shutdown began in the United States, and hopes of getting out of it still seem faint.
Who will replace Draghi as head of the ECB? Mario Draghi's term of office will end on October 31. At the moment, four names stand out as potential candidates for his succession. They are Erkki Liikanen, current Governor of the Bank of Finland, Benoit Coeuré, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, François Villeroy de Galhau, Governor of the Banque de France, and Jens Weidmann, President of the Bank of Germany. He needs to be not too northern, not too southern, not too hawkish, not too dovish, but an excellent communicator: is the right person sitting in this quartet? A com' champion is all the more necessary because at the Davos Economic Forum, participants seem to want to force central banks to review the way they communicate to the markets on interest rate developments and their intentions ("forward guidance").
In other news. No surprises expected on Thursday for the first meeting of the year: the ECB is expected to maintain its key rates. In Spain, Inigo Errejon, the co-founder and current deputy of the anti-austerity political party "Podemos", resigns. At the beginning of February, the European Commission is expected to reduce its economic growth forecast for 2019 to 0.6% (currently 1.0%, and 1.2% last November) for Italy. Today, it is exactly one month since the shutdown began in the United States, and hopes of getting out of it still seem faint.
