Leadership

The Week Ahead: Greek public servants strike on Wed; German GDP figures

09.02.2010
With the markets still jittery over Greek public debt and the Greek Government making a concerted attempt to rein in its public deficit in, public servants in the country are set to stage a 24-hour strike on Wednesday.

The ADEDY public-sector union will stage its strike just one week after the Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou secured European Commission approval for the government’s cost-cutting plan.

International investors will be scrutinising the reaction of the Greek Government to the strike to see if the political will is there to face down union opposition to the proposed austerity cuts which include an extension of a public-sector pay freeze, the cutting of public servants’ allowances, and a freeze in public-service recruitment in 2010.

The consequences for the Eurozone should Greece fail to rein in its public debts could be serious. If public debt in the Mediterranean country continues to rise, this will place pressure on its bonds, with a resulting sharp rise in borrowing costs, which could result in fellow members of the 16-nation euro monetary zone having to bail out Greece.

Sticking with the Eurozone, Friday will also see Germany publish its GDP growth figures covering the final three months of 2009. The figures will be closely watched to see if the recovery in train in the monetary bloc’s largest economy since the second quarter of 2009 has sustained its momentum in the final quarter of the year.

Later today, attention will focus on the latest retail sales figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO). Figures released in January showed some sign of stabilisation in retail sales in November 2009 with a fall of 8.2pc, compared to the massive double-digit fall of 27.7pc during the same month in 2009.

Today, expect results from Coca-Cola, Walt Disney and Gartner.

The Irish Industrial Production Turnover for December is published this Wednesday, and companies reporting that day include Boston Scientific, Elan, Smurfit Kappa and the New York Times.

Thursday sees the publication of the closely watched US initial jobless claims.

Also published on Thursday is the Irish consumer price index for January.

Results-wise, Thursday is fairly busy day with companies including Credit Suisse, KBC, BT, Diageo, PepsiCo, Rio Tinto, Renault, Statoil, Alcatel-Lucent and Beckman Coulter.

Pictured: Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou

^{Photo - WEF/swiss-image.ch/Andy Mettler}