Political tail risk in Europe thins but still further to go

German and Italian elections to come

Heartwood Investment Management's manager Jaisal Pastakia takes a closer look at Europe's political backdrop and explores why the outcomes of elections across the region this year have not been as 'extreme' as some had feared.

We are just coming through a long election cycle in Europe, which began 18 months ago in Spain and has come, so far, to the point of the French presidential and parliamentary elections. Reassuringly for financial markets, none of these events has resulted in an ‘extreme' outcome. We still have a few more events to go through - and we should not rule out something unexpected - but, in our view, we are approaching the tail-end of this election cycle. Reform and a potential recharging of the European project The French election results marked a turning point in significantly reducing...