The GBP EUR exchange rate may be on the verge of recovery today as the House of Lords is expected to deliver the government its first defeat for its Brexit bill.
The Pound strengthened as Lords are said to be pushing to amend the legislation to ensure that the rights of EU citizens living in the UK are protected during Brexit negotiations.
The amendment reportedly has cross-party peer support despite Home Secretary Amber Rudd attempting to reassure members that the government would prioritise the rights of EU nationals in talks.
However her comments that this could not be ensured ahead of negotiations while the status of Brits living abroad was at risk lead to commendation from many peers as they accused the government of treating people’s lives as pieces to be traded.
Labour’s leader in the Lords, Lady Smith said;
‘To continue to use people as bargaining chips in this way is not only shameful but could have a dire impact on the UK’s economy and essential services.’
Sterling’s recovery also looks set to be aided by an uptick in housing data, with both House Prices and Mortgage Approvals showing improvement.
Nationwide reported that UK house prices rose by 4.5% in February, up from 4.3% the month before and beating predictions of a 4% rise.
Mortgages approvals also outpaced expectations as they jumped from 68.27K to 69.93K in January, easily surpassing forecasts that they would rise to 68.65K.
Meanwhile, not be outdone on the data front, the Eurozone released its Manufacturing PMI for February this morning, with factories reporting their highest rate of growth in over five years as Markit noted that activity rose from 55.2 to 55.4.
Germany also released its latest unemployment data this morning, with the jobless rate falling by 14k in February.
Whilst higher than the 10k drop expected, it still lagged behind the 26k drop at the start of the year and ultimately led to the Unemployment Rate remaining unchanged at 5.9%, with the Euro also remaining relatively unperturbed by the result.
However with economists predicting that Germany’s inflation rate increased again last month, climbing from 1.9% to 2.1%, will the single currency bring an early end to the Pound’s rally this afternoon?
Current Interbank Exchange Rates
At the time of writing the GBP EUR exchange rate was trending around 1.17 and the EUR GBP exchange rate was trending around 0.85.
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