Friday, the concerns on the euro zone sovereign debt crisis continued to drag on the market, the European stock markets continued to fall. The Pan-European Dow Jones index closed at 233.71 points, down by 0.43% on Friday.
As the pessimism of the investors, coupled with the progress of the regional debt crisis, the European stock index down 2.8% this week. On Friday, among the Major regional indices, the UK FTSE 100 index fell 0.25 percent, to close at 5387.34 points; the French CAC 40 index dropped 0.88% to finish at 2972.30 points; German DAX 30 index shed 0.50% to close at 5701.78 points.
European Union officials released a draft of new treaty aimed at strengthening the euro area countries and the other EU Member States fiscal rules on Friday, hoping to promote deeper economic integration among the countries in Europe, to solve the regional debt crisis that had lasted for two years.
Italian government’s budget austerity plan easily won the votes of confidence of the lower house of parliament on Friday, despite of the ongoing protests and strike actions in Italy.
Fitch announced on Friday that it would put the Italy, Spain, Ireland, Belgium, Slovenia and Cyprus’s sovereign rating on the negative watch list, and was considering lowering the rating of these countries one or two grades.