While Wall Street and the London Stock Exchange remained closed on Monday 25 May 2026 for Memorial Day and Spring Bank Holiday respectively, the Paris Stock Exchange operated normally despite the Whit Monday public holiday in France. Brent crude fell about 5% to under $99 a barrel as President Trump described US-Iran talks as proceeding in a ‘constructive manner’.
London’s premier equity indices closed the week ending 24 May on a buoyant note, with the FTSE 100 reaching a record high of 9,158 points as investors welcomed the Bank of England’s decision to maintain interest rates and absorbed optimistic forecasts from major Wall Street analysts. The domestically-focused FTSE 250 posted stronger gains, climbing 0.9%…
The European Union has finalised a comprehensive overhaul of its steel safeguard measures, establishing annual tariff-free import quotas of 18.3 million tonnes and imposing a 50 per cent duty on volumes exceeding that threshold. The provisional agreement between Parliament and Council, formally endorsed on 23 May, will take effect on 1 July 2026, replacing temporary…
Industrial production across the European Union fell by 0.8 per cent in March compared to the previous month, according to figures released by Eurostat on 22 May, marking the latest evidence of a manufacturing slowdown that has gripped the bloc’s economy. The year-on-year contraction of 1.4 per cent underscores mounting challenges facing EU industry as…
The International Monetary Fund has advised the Bank of England not to raise interest rates this year, despite the inflationary pressures from the Iran conflict. Holding the Bank Rate at 3.75% should be sufficient to bring inflation back to target by end-2027, the Fund concluded in its latest UK Article IV consultation.
The European Parliament has placed the question of joint EU medicines procurement at the centre of its May plenary, as pressure from Washington and Beijing on pharmaceutical supply chains reaches what liberals describe as a decisive moment for the Union’s negotiating leverage.
The European Union faces a pivotal choice over how to secure supplies of essential medicines, with lawmakers debating whether Brussels should harness the collective bargaining power of its 450 million citizens or maintain the current system of individual national negotiations with major pharmaceutical suppliers in the United States and China. Renew Europe’s lead negotiator on…
European Union gas storage levels stood at 36 per cent on 13 May 2026, the lowest mid-injection-season reading since 2018, as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz tightens LNG supply. The Commission has formally relaxed the mandatory November filling target from 90 per cent to 80 per cent for the 2026 winter season.
EU trade ministers meet in the Foreign Affairs Council (Trade) configuration this week to review economic security, the impact of the Middle East conflict on trade flows, and the follow-up to the 14th WTO Ministerial Conference held in Yaoundé from 26 to 30 March 2026.
The European Commission presents its Fertilisers Action Plan during the May plenary in Strasbourg, addressing EU agriculture’s dependency on imported nitrogen, persistently elevated prices since the 2022 energy crisis, and the necessity of anchoring strategic production capacity within the Union.
