Viewers in europe and those waking up in the united states. Guy we are here in london. Francine we have the news. We have protests in front of the headquarters in frankfurt. For more, we are joined by mike on the program. Great to have you. How much are you putting on the budget . This is the political budget and the elections are days away. We will get a budget after the elections and if it shifts the polls, how much . It looks like we are in a minority government and anything that shifts the polls would be good. Guy a has shifted since the autumn statement. As it stands, he will lower it for this year by a couple billion and it will lower inflation and welfare payments for the future years. He has 23 billion pounds and he has wiggle room. How much can he use and retain the argument that he is a responsible chancellor and that is the key challenge he has got. Francine the election is difficult to call. Is there something that would scare investors away . The market is aware the chance
Francine and im Francine Lacqua. Euro area finance ministers convene in brussels today. Greece will be front and center of their discussion. Greece is facing challenges on several fronts, the euro sliding as a debt payment is due tomorrow. Chancellor Angela Merkel faces domestic pressures to give up on greece. Guy Tom Mackenzie is in brussels. Marcus bensasson is in athens. Tom, what will this meeting deliver . Tom you might be thinking, here we go again. Greece faces some very concrete deadlines. That is a 150 million euro payment to the imf tomorrow followed by another one in june and a huge payment to the ecb in july and august. Expectations being dull down because of the tensions between the two sides. Recently the french finance minister coming out, saying that to reach an agreement, we have days or weeks. It follows comments by wolfgang schaeuble, saying, warning that greece could accidentally default. And Jeroen Dijsselbloem saying that greece has not done enough. Great Prime Mi
Could be worth 4 billion. And a santa rally is under way before he sets off on his Global Delivery round. Happy Christmas Eve, everyone. Many of the markets here in europe are already closed such as the italian, swiss and fwerman ones, but there are a km markets still trading at least until around noon, 1 00. Were seeing a little green on the charts. The cac 40 up by 0. 3 and the ftse 100 is seeing similar gains. European markets trading close to a threeweek high. This is on the back of some m a activity that we saw in the european markets yesterday but also the cheer given that we see those record highs in the u. S. Trading session. In terms of some of the sectors, travel, leisure, media outperforming, we have no sector in the red today, but in terms of the relative underperformers, were seeing technology and basic resources in terms of the on the lower part of the ledger, technology saw nice gains in yesterdays trading session arm being one of the better performances. Apple, kind of
A very warm welcome to the pulse. I am manus cranny. Go, than 48 hours to scottish voters head to the poll and decide whether to become an independent country or stick with the union. David cameron made a final plea for no vote. His opposition leader, edward miliband, its set to do the same thing. Alan crawford joins us. You have got to say, it was a lastditch impassioned plea by the Prime Minister. Well, the first indication we had is the herold newspaper has come out for no. In that sense, she has of the result, but yes, and impassioned plea. Anythingd to imagine like this. The Prime Minister pleading with scottish voters to stay with the union. Very much a heartfelt message. At one point said even if you do not like me, i will not be here forever. If you do not like the conservatives, they will not be here forever. If you vote for independence, there is no going back. He said it was no each trial a divorce. What it was impassioned to be followed by the opposition, ed miliband today.
We begin with the highly anticipated results of the Airport Commission study. Among the plans chosen from more than 50 proposals is the contentious idea of expanding heathrow. Caroline hyde has been following this story. Walk us through the key proposals, what is in and what is out. Listat is not on the short is Birmingham Airport and the thames estuary. Lets look at the three proposals. What howard davis said is needed is one runway by 2013 and potentially 2 additional runways by 2015. Theyre looking at one option with Gatwick Airport to build a new runway to the south of the easiest thing runway. The other two surround heathrow, our biggest hub and the most busy airport in all of europe. One new runway in the northwest and could be an extension of the existing runway. They have not listed thames estuary, saying it is too uncertain. They might look at it again in the first half of next year. Boris johnson coming out today saying, it is not dead. They are not being considered. Business