Economy

EU-China Relations
China and EU agree to reduce hybrid car exports

China has agreed to significantly reduce exports of hybrid cars to the EU. This was announced by EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič, according to Bloomberg.

"This opens up the possibility of halving China's exports," says Šefčovič, who held several meetings this week with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao and Vice Premier He Lifeng.

On Thursday, EU leaders will gather to decide how to address the fact that the EU imports far more from China than the other way around. China hopes the new agreement will lead to the scrapping of EU demands for tariffs and other countermeasures against the country.

China’s Ministry of Commerce states that the agreement also includes a "green channel" designed to facilitate export licenses for rare earth metals to the EU. 

EU Budget
Sweden slams new compromise proposal: "Unreasonable"

Ireland wants to cut the EU's next long-term budget by eight percent compared to the European Commission's proposal, Politico reports. Sweden considers the reduction still insufficient ahead of next week's summit.

"The proposal remains unreasonable. The total budget must be reduced significantly," writes EU Minister Jessica Rosencrantz (Moderate Party) on X.

Sweden and five other countries want to cut the budget by several hundred billion euros. Other member states want to protect funding for agriculture and regional development. The budget covers the period 2028–2034 and requires approval from all member states. The goal is to reach an agreement before the turn of the year.

Market Sentiment
Leading strategist: AI bubble to burst in 2027 or 2028

Joachim Klement, chief strategist at the British investment bank Panmure Liberum, believes that the AI ​​hype has created a stock market bubble.

"My fundamental conviction is that the AI ​​bubble will burst in either 2027 or 2028—that is, sometime within the next two years," he tells Bloomberg.

This conclusion is based on the fact that several tech giants are facing strained cash flows while borrowing costs are rising. The result could be the worst stock market crash since the 2008 financial crisis.

Klement predicts that Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 index will plummet 36 percent by the end of next year. This makes him by far the most pessimistic of the strategists tracked by Bloomberg.