At least nine people have been killed and many more injured, according to German police, after a truck ploughed into a Christmas market in Berlin in what is believed to have been a deliberate attack. A vehicle, a large black Scania articulated lorry, ran into the market outside the landmark Kaiser Wilhelm memorial church on Monday evening. German police said one person was found dead in the lorry, having died of injuries sustained in the crash, while a suspect was arrested about 100 metres away from the scene in the Tiergarten.  A witness told the Guardian that the truck ploughed into the market at speed. “It was not an accident. The truck was going 40mph. It was in the middle of a square, there are main roads either side, [where it could have come from]. But it showed no sign of slowing down,” said Emma Rushton.  She said it crashed into a stall only a few feet from where she and her friend were standing. “We heard a massive bang. About eight to 10 feet in front of us was where the lorry ploughed through. It ploughed through the stall where we bought our mulled wine.

“It ploughed through people and the wooden huts, it tore the lights down. Everything went dark, it was black and there was screaming. It was awful,” she said.

Banca italiană "Monte dei Paschi di Siena" va scoate la vânzare noi acţiuni în perioada 19-22 decembrie, într-o ultimă încercare de a-şi majora capitalul în acest an cu 5 miliarde de euro şi a evita în acest fel solicitarea unui ajutor din partea statului, transmite Reuters. "Monte dei Paschi" a anunţat că oferta adresată investitorilor instituţionali, care reprezintă 65% din total, se va încheia joi. Oferta rezervată acţionarilor actuali şi persoanelor fizice va avea loc până miercuri.  În încercarea de a atrage fonduri, "Monte dei Paschi" a prelungit o ofertă de schimb voluntar de obligaţiuni cu acţiuni, adresată investitorilor care deţin obligaţiuni junior ale băncii în valoare de 2,1 miliarde de euro. Oferta are loc în intervalul 16-21 decembrie. Guvernul italian este pregătit să susţină a treia mare bancă din ţară, dacă planul de atragere de fonduri nu va funcţiona. Potrivit noilor reglementări adoptate de Uniunea Europeană după criza financiară, investitorii într-o bancă cu probleme trebuie să suporte primii pierderile, înainte ca guvernul să intervină cu fonduri publice. O sursă apropiată situaţiei a declarat vineri că salvarea de către stat a "Monte dei Paschi" implică mai întâi conversia obligatorie în acţiuni a unor obligaţiuni subordonate în valoare de 4,1 miliarde de euro. 

The US Federal Reserve has raised interest rates for only the second time in a decade.
Janet Yellen, the chairman of the Fed, described the move as “a reflection of the confidence we have in the progress that the economy has made and our judgment that progress will continue”.  But with “considerable uncertainty” surrounding the economic outlook, how is Donald Trump’s election as US president likely to shape the path of interest rates?   After the financial crisis, the Fed slashed rates close to zero in a bid to support economic activity and prevent a bigger rise in unemployment.
It kept them there until December 2015, when it raised its target range to between 0.25pc and 0.5pc.

Back then, policymakers signalled that four more interest rate rises were on the way if world events turned out as they predicted.  They didn't.  At the start of 2016, stock markets were rocked by fears over the Chinese economy, and policymakers opted to keep rates unchanged, noting that they were "closely monitoring global economic and financial developments".  The Brexit vote in June also caused concern among policymakers.  Even before the vote, policymakers noted that "the upcoming British referendum on membership in the European Union could generate financial market turbulence that could adversely affect domestic economic performance." While the Fed's mandate states that policymakers must "promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices and moderate long-term interest rates" in the US, global events matter.  The US presidential election also gave policymakers reasons for pause.  At the start of last month, they judged that "the case for an increase in the federal funds rate [ie. interest rates] has continued to strengthen but [we] decided, for the time being, to wait for some further evidence of continued progress toward its objectives."  While the UK voted for Brexit and the US voted for Donald Trump, the market reaction has been relatively calm.Investors are now expecting a mini-economic boom in the US and have pulled cash out of bonds and emerging markets and into US equities. Following last night's announcement, yields on two year Treasury bonds climbed to a seven-year high on expectations of faster rate hikes.
Implied borrowing costs across Europe also ticked higher, with UK benchmark 10-year gilt yields

In the future, Romania may not receive funding from international organizations such as the IMF or the EU.  "There are no guarantees that the IMF, EU or other supra-national or international organizations will make available to Romania similar financing programs in the future. Both the current account and the budget deficit are rising. If these deficits are going to require the availability of future financing, Romania may pass additional measures that could hinder economic growth". NBR officials declined to comment on the statements included in the MedLife IPO prospectus. Last month, Lucian Croitoru, advisor to NBR governor Mugur Isărescu, warned that Romania was closer than one may think "either to an adjustment towards its potential, or towards recession", if the adjustments aren't made on time.  He wrote, on the NBR blog, that the monetary policy is more relaxes than intended, and the "relaxed fiscal policy has generated a fiscal impulse which stimulated the economy more than would have been implied by the negative amount of the GDP gap". This process whereby the VAT cuts and salary increases stimulate other countries' economies cannot last, and the inflation driven exclusively by demand will increase,  Mr. Croitoru said. He added: "In that context, the measures from 2016, to cut VAT by 4 percentage points together with the significant increase of wage expenditures, are not sustainable. They are putting pressures on the current account deficit and on inflation".  This year, NBR governor Mugur Isărescu has warned on several occasions against the fiscal relaxation measures passed together with salary increases in an electoral year. 

Raiffeisen Bank has snuck a gloomy prediction for the Romanian economy in the prospectus of the MedLife IPO, which it intermediates. "Most analysts claim that Romania needs a new stand-by agreement with the IMF", the MedLife prospectus , published yesterday in order to inform the investors interested in the Romanian stock market and in the MedLife shares in particular. The announcement is mind-boggling, especially as politicians and government members assure us that we are going to have economic growth, higher wages and lower taxes. Furthermore, prime-minister Dacian Cioloş has publicly announced that he would challenge all populist laws with the Constitutional Court. "Raiffeisen Bank" has dropped the aforementioned "bomb" in the Medlife IPO, five days ahead of the parliamentary elections. Except it hasn't taken responsibility for it directly, instead alleging this idea is the result of consensus from "most analysts", without naming them. It is not out of the question that "Raiffeisen Bank" just wanted to make noise and draw attention from investors, as the Romanian stock market has failed to become attractive, despite the projects for expansion conducted by the Bucharest Stock Exchange (the Project to remove the barriers to the entry on the stock market) and by the Financial Oversight Authority (the STEAM project, which has as its goal the move up to the emerging market status) and having brought in Pole Ludwik Sobolewski as CEO. Despite all these efforts, the BSE daily turnover only occasionally passes 7 million Euros a day. "Raiffeisen Bank" has stood out lately, precisely by the fact that it has threatened the Romanian government with a lawsuit in the International Court of Arbitrage, as well as following the ruling of the Supreme Council of Magistrates (CSM), which accused the bank of trying to intervene in the ruling rendering process in relation to the laws concerning the banking sector. The bank later changed its tune and sponsored an event of the Romanian government, which was attended by German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble.

Reuters writes that the 2 billion Euros "investment" needs to be approved by the European Commission, which needs to check whether the transaction occurs at the market price or if it represents a state aid. Shortly after, a report appeared in Italian daily La Stampa, where it is state that the authorities in Rome have asked for a 15 billion Euros financial aid from the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) to prop up Italy's banking system. Shares of Italian banks rose significantly following the news, with Monte dei Paschi, being the best "performer", with a rise of about 10%. "No request for the ESM is being prepared", a spokesperson of the Italian treasury said, according to Financial Times.  With the resignation of the government led by Matteo Renzi, who has announced on his Twitter account that the budget law has been approved, Italy's "Aeneid" in the Eurozone enters a new stage and nobody knows when the country is going to turn that corner.  As for Greece's "Odyssey", Bloomberg asks whether the plan to cut the debt burden isn't too small and applied too late, reminding that the IMF sees the fiscal targets as unrealistic and the debt as far too big. Right now all we have to do is wait, even though we probably won't have to wait as many years as have passed since the aggravated phase of the sovereign debt in Europe, to find out whether Greece and Italy will "kick the bucket" once they "turn that corner". 

The International Monetary Fund, the third pillar of the creditors' Troika, has not yet accepted that and continues to ask for the application of a new debt reduction, so that it becomes bearable, as well as the continuation of the austerity programs. Even though the authorities in Athens have accepted the measures adopted in the Eurogroup meeting, once they got home they also "discovered" their true meaning. The measures for relieving the burden of the public debt will be applicable until 2060 and are subject to achieving the creation of a budget surplus of approximately 3.5% of the GDP over a ten year period, which will begin after the completion of the current bail-out program, in 2018.  Apparently no one knows why the new proposals of the European creditors are realistic. What will be extremely realistic and painful will be the new taxes provided in the draft budget for 2017. According to an article from French newspaper Le Monde, new taxes will be introduced for personal vehicles, landline phones, TVs, fuel, tobacco, coffee and beer.  Unfortunately, those taxes are missing one item, because there haven't been dance taxes introduced, as is happening in Brussels, where the local authorities have "rediscovered" a tax that was approved in the "50s and they send people undercover in bars and restaurants to make sure it is paid.  Of course, the "optimism" displayed by the European and the Greek authorities is completely out of place. "The agreement of the Eurogroup represents a chance for Greece to turn a corner", said Euclid Tsakalotos, finance minister in the government led by Alexis Tsipras, except his statement was made in spring this year, according to daily Kathimerini. Nobody expected miracles right away back then, but there are no signals that Greece is ready to turn a corner, just like nobody expects the new tax hikes and the newly introduced taxes to generate a virtuous circle of growth. As strange as it may seem, the notion of "virtuous circle of economic growth" actually exists in the discourse of the authorities in Athens. As always their optimism runs smack dab into the attitude of German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble. On the day of the referendum in Italy, Schäuble said, in an interview he gave Bild am Sonntag, that "Athens needs to finally apply the necessary reforms, or else it has no room in the Eurozone".