By Ashley Finill
The German elections were held over the weekend with Angela Merkel stepping down after 16 years as Chancellor of Germany. With her party expected to remain in power there was a shock with the centre left Social Democrats (SPD) securing a narrow win. With such a narrow victory the SPD now must form a coalition government, an announcement of this is expected to be formed with the Greens and Liberals. As the result of the election was a somewhat surprise and a coalition has to be formed, slight uncertainty was sparked and as such the Euro reacted to this, as a result we have seen sterling gain on the Euro today. This is welcome news for the Pound as the fuel crisis has struck the UK in recent days.
UK Fuel Crisis Creates Panic
Last week BP announced they were shutting some forecourts in the UK as a result of fuel shortages due to tanker drivers not being able to deliver to some stations in the UK. Once this had been reported by the news it has seemingly created widespread panic amongst the general public. As a result, petrol companies are closing stations all over the UK as result of panic buying as they cannot keep up with the demand. Queues are forming all around petrol stations for any in operation and any stations receiving a delivery are quick to run out again. With haulage companies already at their knees due to too few drivers in this sector, this may be a sign of things to come, and not just in the fuel sector. The government are trying to find a way to deliver fuel efficiently throughout the UK during this crisis with the potential scenario of the army being brought in to drive the fuel trucks. Should there continue to be delivery shortages in sectors in the UK this will likely cause a negative effect in the UK economy and as such could see sterling drop against the Euro in the coming months.