Inflation down in Sweden, euro-zone stagnating

As of this week, coverage of Switzerland and the Nordic economies will be incorporated, along with the euro-zone, in our expanded Europe Economics service. Among the Nordics, the key data release this week was Sweden’s inflation rate for April, which came in lower than expected and prompted us to nudge down our forecast for the Riksbank’s policy rate. In the euro-zone, data published this week confirmed that the economy stagnated over the winter and had a particularly weak end to Q1. On Sunday, the Greek population will head to the polls, and next week we expect the first euro-zone business surveys for May to have softened.