Euro area confidence climbed despite the UK referendum result
by Peter Spence, Economics Correspondent
Telegraph.co.uk
Eurozone optimism has picked up despite last month’s Brexit vote, as a key measure signalled that the result had not dealt a major blow to the currency bloc.
The European Commission’s economic sentiment indicator (ESI) rose by 0.2 points to 104.6 this month, defying the City analysts who had pencilled in a fall of some 0.9 points. Italy was particularly strong, and an improvement in Germany also helped to boost the confidence measure.
The Commission said that the eurozone had been “resilient”, while Bert Colijn, an ING Bank economist, said that “the fact that sentiment actually improved in the wake of the British EU referendum indicates that the initial impact of the vote on the eurozone has been small”.