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| Eurozone crisis live: Bernanke and Geithner to talk about Europe | Eurozone crisis live: Bernanke and Geithner to talk about Europe |
| (40 minutes later) | |
| 8.29am: The Budget live blog is now up and running. Follow rolling coverage from Andrew Sparrow and Graeme Wearden here. | |
| As Andrew points out, there's already plenty to talk about ahead of Osborne's statement to parliament at 12.30pm. | |
| John Bercow's campaign to stop George Osborne revealing the contents of his budget in advance, before parliament has been told, doesn't seem to be going too well. In fact, he's failing dismally. According to one source, the Treasury have already put out 11 budet-related stories and the broad outline of the tax changes being announced are already in the public domain. The personal tax allowance will rise to above £9,000 in April 2013 - to £9,205, according to ITN's Tom Bradby - and the 50p top rate of tax will be cut to 45p. These measures will be funded by taxes that hit the rich, including stamp duty going up from 5% to 7% on properties worth more than £2m, a crackdown on aggressive tax avoidance and some kind of limit on the amount of tax relief the very wealth can claim. You can read all the Guardian's budget coverage here, where there are full details of what has already come out. The cabinet were meeting at 8am to be briefed on the budget. But ministers could be forgiven for staying in bed because there is so much out there already. | |
| 8.23am: Greek deputy finance minister Filippos Sachinidis to be appointed finance minister. More on that shortly. | |
| 8.13am: Today's agenda includes minutes from the Bank of England's last interest rate meeting. Portugal is issuing treasury bills and there are figures on existing home sales out of the US. | 8.13am: Today's agenda includes minutes from the Bank of England's last interest rate meeting. Portugal is issuing treasury bills and there are figures on existing home sales out of the US. |
• UK public sector finances and public sector net borrowing: 9.30am GMT • Portugal issues up to €2bn of treasury bills: 10.30am GMT • UK Chancellor George Osborne delivers budget statement to the Commons: 12.30pm GMT • Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner testify before a • US existing home sales for February: 2pm GMT | • Bank of England publishes minutes from the monetary policy committee's March meeting: 9.30am GMT • UK public sector finances and public sector net borrowing: 9.30am GMT • Portugal issues up to €2bn of treasury bills: 10.30am GMT • UK Chancellor George Osborne delivers budget statement to the Commons: 12.30pm GMT • Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner testify before a house committee hearing, "Europe's Sovereign debt Crisis: Causes, Consequences for the US and Lessons Learned": 1.30 GMT • US existing home sales for February: 2pm GMT |
| Elsewhere in the debt markets, we're hoping for pricing of of the €4bn 5-year EFSF bond announced yesterday. Germany is auctioning €5bn of 2-year Schatz (government bonds), and €2bn of inflation-linked bonds; and there's another day of auctions for Italy's four-year inflation-linked bond. | |
| 7.50am: Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the eurozone debt crisis. | 7.50am: Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the eurozone debt crisis. |
| All eyes will be on the UK today, with chancellor George Osborne due to present the budget at 12.30pm. My colleagues Graeme Wearden and Andrew Sparrow will be providing rolling coverage of all budget-related news on a separate live blog from 8am. I'll post a link when that is up and running. | All eyes will be on the UK today, with chancellor George Osborne due to present the budget at 12.30pm. My colleagues Graeme Wearden and Andrew Sparrow will be providing rolling coverage of all budget-related news on a separate live blog from 8am. I'll post a link when that is up and running. |
| Later today, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke and US treasury secretary Tim Geithner are talking all about the lessons they've learned from the eurozone crisis in a House committee. We've already got a prepared statement from Bernanke, which I'll post more of shortly. | Later today, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke and US treasury secretary Tim Geithner are talking all about the lessons they've learned from the eurozone crisis in a House committee. We've already got a prepared statement from Bernanke, which I'll post more of shortly. |
| And in Greece, they're due to announce the new finance minister. | And in Greece, they're due to announce the new finance minister. |