- French Finance Minister
France has unexpectedly decreased its budget shortfall in 2014, while analysts expected the weakened country's economy to have more negative impact on public finances. The fiscal gap in the Fifth Republic slumped to 4% of GDP last year, down from 4.1% in 2013 and lower than 4.4% initially predicted by the government. According to the French Finance Minister Michel Sapin, many local authorities managed to decrease their negative budget balances, thus positively contributing to the overall situation. He added that the government has also improved its forecast for the deficit in 2015, revising it down from 4.1% to 3.8% of GDP. Moreover, after growing just 0.4% during previous year, country's economy is now estimated to gain more than 1% this year. However, French negative fiscal gap is still higher than the EU requires it to be at maximum 3% from GDP. Recently, the European Commission has extended the penalty-free period for France to decrease its deficit down to the benchmark until 2017.
At the same time, on Thursday the market research group GfK published its consumer climate index for Germany. It showed a stable positive development and an increase from 9.7 points this month up to 10 points for April. All sub-indicators, including income and economic predictions and readiness to buy strengthened, therefore giving further signs of economic expansion.
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