New elections have been called in Greece and so we look at the timeline of what might happen in the coming months and the consequences if a solution to Greece’s problems is not found.

Today’s key figure relases showed a somewhat better growth performance for the Euro area as a whole than expected.

News that the Democratic Left have tentatively agreed to participate in a grand coalition offers hope of a new Greek government being announced this weekend.

With 99% of the votes from Sunday’s general elections counted, the two “big” parties – the conservative New Democracy and the socialist PASOK – won 149 seats in the 300-seat parliament and hence lack two seats to form a majority coalition.

Markets are expected to set out with a negative tone towards risk today after the uncertain Greek election outcome and the very soft US employment report Friday. Hollande won in France, as expected.

The ECB decided to keep interest rates unchanged at today’s meeting and gave no new signals.

Outlook for next week’s key figures and events in the US, the euro area, China, Japan, UK, Canada, Switzerland, Australia and New Zealand.

Additional crisis measures are not on the cards at the ECB meeting today – but we see an increasing risk of an additional rate cut if the expected recovery of the Euro area fails to materialise.

Today’s PMI numbers increase the concerns about growth in Italy and confirms the gradually worsening growth momentum in the Euro area in total

The need for additional crisis measures from the ECB has diminished, but interest rate cuts have become more likely!