War in Ukraine plunges consumer confidence to lowest since 2013

Consumer confidence plummeted since war in Ukraine

The confidence of Dutch consumers in the economy has fallen sharply since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. That is what the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) has on Wednesday announced† Consumer confidence in March was -39, according to CBS. That is well below the average of the past twenty years and the lowest level ever recorded since 2013.

According to CBS, the war in Ukraine played a part in consumer confidence for March this year for the first time. Since the outbreak of the war, inflation in Europe has risen rapidly. This month, consumers are mainly negative about the economic outlook and their own financial situation in the coming twelve months.

Willingness to buy, one of the indicators used to measure consumer confidence, was -26 in March. That is the lowest level in more than eight years. At the end of 2020, consumer confidence and the willingness to buy appeared to be on the rise again since the outbreak of the corona pandemic. It has been declining again since June 2021.

US and EU against Russian participation in G20, countries consider boycott

A number of G20 members are considering skipping the upcoming summit in Jakarta at the end of this year, due to Russia’s membership of the alliance. Sources have told Reuters news agency that, the news agency reported on Wednesday. It is unclear which countries are considering defaulting.

The US and European countries in particular would find Russian participation in the summit problematic. The chance that Russia will be excluded from the G20 is considered small, due to expected resistance from Russian-minded countries such as China, India and Saudi Arabia.

Russian Ambassador to Indonesia Lyudmila Vorobieeva said on Wednesday that President Vladimir Putin simply plans to attend the summit. According to her, „the reaction of the West [-] extremely disproportionate,” referring to sanctions against Russia since the invasion of Ukraine.

Until the annexation of Crimea in 2014, Russia was a member of the G8, which has since gone on to become the G7. The G7 and G20 are informal international partnerships of the world’s largest economies where topics such as climate and trade are discussed.

Overview: Russia does not rule out nuclear weapons and Zelensky calls talks ‘confrontational’

These are the main developments from Tuesday evening and the night from Tuesday to Wednesday:

• Russia refuses the use of nuclear weapons to exclude. In an interview with CNN Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said these weapons could be used if there was an “existential threat”. In the same interview, Peskov says that Russia has not yet achieved its military goals in Ukraine.
• In his daily speech, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that an agreement between Ukraine and Russia is yet is far away† “We will continue to work at different levels to encourage Russia to work towards peace,” Zelensky said according to Reuters news agency† Zelensky called the daily negotiations with Russia “very difficult, sometimes confrontational”.
• Earlier on Tuesday, Prime Minister Mark Rutte visited Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara. Rutte thanked Erdogan at the visit because it is trying to ‘find a diplomatic solution and thereby stop the Russian aggression’. NATO member Turkey condemns the invasion by Russia, but tries to maintain good relations with Moscow.