US Federal Reserve Chairman Powell: Fed members see interest rates higher at the end of the year
WASHINGTON – US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has again announced further interest rate hikes. “Almost all” members of the Monetary Policy Committee expected that to bring inflation down to the 2 percent target in the long-term this year, Powell said, according to a speech pre-released Wednesday. Powell will address the House Financial Services Committee beginning at 4 p.m.
ROUNDUP: Persistent inflation puts British central bank under pressure
LONDON – Persistent inflation is putting pressure on the British central bank. To the surprise of analysts, inflation did not fall further in May. Core inflation excluding volatile energy, food and beverage prices actually rose. Core inflation is considered by experts to be the more reliable variable when it comes to the fundamental price trend. Many central banks, including the British central bank, are currently paying particular attention to the value.
ROUNDUP/Ifo-Institut: Economy in Germany will shrink by 0.4 percent in 2023
MUNICH/BERLIN – The Ifo Institute has lowered its economic forecast for the current year and now expects gross domestic product to fall by 0.4 percent. At 5.8 percent, inflation is likely to be lower than in the previous year, but private consumption should not noticeably increase economic output again until the fourth quarter. “The German economy is only slowly working its way out of the recession,” said Ifo economic chief Timo Wollmershäuser on Wednesday in Berlin.
OVERALL ROUNDUP: Zelenskyj dampens expectations of offensive – EU sanctions
KIEV/LONDON – According to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the counter-offensive by the Ukrainian army will not quickly lead to the liberation of all areas occupied by Russia. “Some people think this is a Hollywood film and expect results now. But it’s not like that,” he told the BBC, according to a post published on Wednesday. “What is at stake are human lives.” Zelenskyi once again dampened expectations that the Russian troops would be pushed back in the near future.
ROUNDUP/Von der Leyen: Russian assets should benefit Ukraine
LONDON – The EU wants to use frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine. The EU Commission will present a plan for this before the summer break, said EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen at a reconstruction conference for Ukraine on Wednesday in London. She added: “The perpetrator must be held accountable”.
Habeck: Germany still lacks gas capacities for emergencies
BERLIN – Economics Minister Robert Habeck does not believe that the German gas supply will be sufficient in all cases in the coming year. “Should damage happen anywhere, should the amount of energy that Germany consumes increase and not decrease, and above all should East Germany run into a bottleneck, I believe we still lack capacities,” said the Green politician in a government survey on Wednesday in the Bundestag.
ROUNDUP: EU countries agree on eleventh package of sanctions against Russia
BRUSSELS – The EU countries have agreed on a new package of sanctions against Russia. It includes punitive measures against other people and organizations who support the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, but also an instrument against circumventing sanctions that have already been imposed, as the Swedish Council Presidency announced in Brussels on Wednesday.
Geywitz: Heat planning up to 2028 also for small towns and villages
BERLIN – According to Federal Building Minister Klara Geywitz, municipal heating planning up to 2028 should also apply to small towns and villages. The original threshold of 10,000 inhabitants is to fall, as the SPD politician announced in the Bundestag on Wednesday. At the request of the Bundestag, the draft law on heat planning is currently being revised accordingly.
Kaczynski again deputy prime minister in Poland
WARSAW – Poland’s strongman Jaroslaw Kaczynski is now officially back in the government. The leader of the national-conservative Law and Justice Party (PiS) was appointed deputy prime minister by President Andrzej Duda in Warsaw on Wednesday, the PAP news agency reported. There had been speculation about this for a long time. Mateusz Morawiecki (also PiS) remains prime minister.
ECB: Euro remains second most important reserve currency
FRANKFURT – The euro has maintained its role as the world’s second most important currency in a year marked by the Ukraine war and high inflation. In 2022, the share of the European common currency in the global official foreign exchange reserves adjusted for exchange rate changes rose by 0.5 percentage points to 20.5 percent, as the European Central Bank (ECB) announced on Wednesday.
Customer note:
ROUNDUP: You are reading a summary in the business cycle overview. There are several reports on the dpa-AFX news service on this subject.
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