European Union’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said that he was unimpressed by threats of a no-deal Brexit that UK ruling Conservatives’ two leadership hopefuls are putting forward. Barnier said if the UK went for a no-deal situation it would face the consequences.
“I think that the UK side, which is well informed and competent and knows the way we work on the EU side, knew from the very beginning that we’ve never been impressed by such a threat,” Barnier told BBC. “It’s not useful to use it”.
The leading candidate Boris Johnson has repeatedly refused to rule out a no-deal Brexit and even implied suspension of the Parliament to that end.
European Central Bank policymaker Francois Villeroy de Galhau said on Thursday that global financial regulators did not have the choice to sacrifice security for the sake of innovation when it comes to digital currencies and particularly Facebook’s Libra. Villeroy was speaking to a summit of central bankers and finance ministers at the G7 summit in Paris.
The US said on Wednesday that it was officially expelling Turkey from the F-35 advanced warplane program following the Russian continued delivery since last week to Ankara of S-400 missile defense systems. The Turkish foreign ministry denounced the move as “unfair” and said it could irreparably damage relations between the two NATO countries.
Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said in a Thursday-published interview that the government could dissolve the parliament and go to elections after the summer break over the differences between the coalition partners.
Data by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showed on Thursday that the unemployment rate in June remained at 5.2% for a third consecutive month. This comes amid calls for fresh stimulus policy as more people look for jobs.
Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda reiterated on Wednesday the bank’s readiness to ramp up monetary support to the economy if Sino-US trade war risks continued to harm their 2% inflation target. Kuroda’s remarks came at the G7 central bankers and finance ministers’ summit in Paris.
Oil prices drew down as the data from the US Energy Information Administration showed a larger-than-expected fall in American crude stockpiles. The fall was at 3.1 million barrels, more than the forecasts of a 2.7 million barrels decrease. This is the fifth consecutive week of decline in the inventories. Oil production in the Gulf of Mexico meanwhile is returning to normality after hurricane Barry passed but a significant portion of the output is still offline as oil firms re-staff their offshore platforms.
