(Bloomberg) --

Welcome to Thursday, Europe. Here’s the latest news and analysis from Bloomberg Economics to help you start the day:

  • U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government faces a coronavirus dilemma: Withdraw support for jobs and wages too soon and it could tip Britain into an unemployment crisis, extend the aid and it may hinder a necessary restructuring.
  • The U.K. housing market gained momentum in July after Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak announced a stamp duty holiday, but the improvement is expected to be short-lived
  • As capital of the world’s No. 1 tourist destination, Paris has no shortage of hotels for all tastes and wallets. But coronavirus and the ensuing lockdown have been hard on the City of Lights
  • The plunge in French unemployment to its lowest rate since 1983 conceals the start of what is set to be a prolonged labor market crisis
  • Lebanon was already coming apart at the seams before a huge cache of ammonium nitrate detonated at the Port of Beirut, killing at least 171 people and wounding thousands. As the realization sank in that the blast was the culmination of decades of corruption and mismanagement, the streets exploded with rage
  • Serbia, the first country in Europe to cut interest rates to combat the fallout from Covid-19, can take a breather as the government moves ahead with a second aid package to help companies and workers
  • A single emergency interest-rate cut by Egypt at the height of the coronavirus pandemic delivered all the monetary stimulus the economy is likely to get any time soon
  • The People’s Bank of China may have bought government bonds from domestic banks in July, a rare move that has analysts puzzling over the monetary authority’s policy intentions amid a record amount of government debt issuance
  • Two senior Fed officials lamented the U.S. failure to control the coronavirus, which stood in poor comparison with efforts in other advanced countries and is undermining the nation’s recovery
  • The U.S. stepped up pressure on Germany and France with an extension of tariffs on some of their goods, a move designed to squeeze the EU into settling a long-running dispute over illegal subsides to Airbus SE

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.