Euro up against the dollar as ECB warns recovery will be slow

The euro has rebounded slightly against the US dollar although fears concerning Greece and Spain continue to heap pressure on the single currency. In recent trading the euro strengthened from a low of 1.2905 to 1.2950. Pessimism about the health of the global economy is also keeping the euro down.

The International Monetary Fund has issued a warning that growth is being hampered by policy makers in the US and Europe failing to do more to aid economic recovery as it reduced its global recovery forecast down from 3.5 per cent this year to 3.3 per cent.

As Greece continues to struggle with targets to reduce its deficit there are concerns that the country will not receive the loans it is expecting from creditors. Financial ministers have dampened expectations that Spain will request a bailout in the near future by saying that Madrid was not in need of external financial help at the current time.

President of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, said this week that countries within the eurozone needed to do more to fix their economic problems by introducing national reforms rather than expecting the ECB to come to their rescue. He told the European Parliament that economic activity in the zone is likely to remain weak for some time and that the road to recovery would be an uphill struggle.

The euro has slipped against the pound by 0.016 per cent to end at 0.8078. The single currency is also down against the yen by 0.24 per cent to 101.33.