The euro has weakened against the US dollar since the beginning of 2021, from around US$1.23 to its current exchange rate of US$1.13. By contrast, countries in the eurozone face a period of greater political instability. So while short-term currency movements are challenging to predict, there are many reasons to believe that the recent period of euro weakness will continue. Indeed, the Fed has recently started “tapering” or slowing down the rate of QE to stop it in the second half of 2022. On the other hand, the ECB has been discussing a replacement for its US$2.2 trillion (£1.7 trillion) QE programme when it ends in March 2022. A final driver of the recent strength of the dollar is more excellent political stability. The drop has also intensified in November, falling 3% since the turn of a month, which has seen violence in European capitals over COVID restrictions, migrant problems at the Belarus-Poland border and Russian troops massing on the border of Ukraine. The question of whether Emmanuel Macron will succeed in the French elections in April 2022 against Marine Le Pen also weighs on investors’ minds, as are the continued trade frictions between the EU and the UK over Brexit. Austria is now back in lockdown, and other eurozone countries could follow suit. The Biden administration still has three years in office and has recently passed its US$1.7 trillion. In addition, there have been significant anti-vaccine protests in France, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy, and European governments are now under intense pressure to bring their spending under control. Germany is seeing the 16 years of relative stability under Angela Merkel coming to an end. This is because increasing the money supply has the potential to stoke inflation. That’s a fall of about 9%, which is significant, especially since these are the two primary currencies of the world. Nevertheless, the euro is still stronger than a couple of years ago, when it was about US$1.10.
Transport department officials have begun work on «Project Silverlight» suggesting the highspeed rail scheme might face four additional years of delay. The planned High Speed 2 rail line faces further delays of up to four years and more cuts to the project under plans being drawn up by ministers to rein in its ballooning costs. The extra delays to the country’s biggest infrastructure project would mean that it would not be completed until as late as 2045 — 12 years after originally planned. «This is a function of inflation; we are having to find huge savings because the cost of everything the department is already doing will have become so much more expensive by then,» said one government official. In October, the FT reported that the Treasury had asked HS2’s management team to identify potential cuts or «scope reductions» to the high-speed line. Transport department officials have subsequently begun work on Project Silverlight aimed at fi...
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