EU HEALTHCARE: Healthcare: Week in Review

Finnish police have confirmed that, as part of a joint operation with Estonia, a vessel has been seized by Finnish authorities after it was suspected of damaging telecoms provider Elisa's cable running under the Gulf of Finland between Helsinki and Tallinn. The Finnish police say that the damage to the cable occurred within the waters of Estonia's exclusive economic zone, and that the seized vessel's anchor chain was found to have been lowered into the sea. It is now known at present which country the vessel is associated with. 

• Posting on X, Finland's President Alexander Stubb said, "We are monitoring the situation in close cooperation with the government. Finland is prepared for security challenges of various kinds, and we respond to them as necessary."
• Helsingin Sanomat: "The disruption has no impact on Elisa's services in Finland or Estonia "due to the network's reliable structure," Elisa said in a statement. However, the disruption may have had an impact on customers who have purchased direct transmission connections from cable."
• Earlier in 2025, crew from a Cook Island-flagged vessel believed to be part of Russia's 'shadow fleet' were charged over an incident in Dec 2024, when five cables running between Finland and Estonia were damaged by an anchor dragged for 90km.
• Russia hawks in Europe have warned that such incidents are likely to continue as part of 'hybrid attacks' by Moscow intended to unnerve, distract, and disrupt European nations amid the ongoing war in Ukraine. 

Portugal HICP accelerated to 2.4% Y/Y in December according to the Statistics Portugal flash release (2.1% November).

• The national-level CPI (non-HICP) meanwhile was almost stable this time, at 2.19% (2.21% November). Discrepancies in the annual rates between CPI and HICP can often be related to owners equivalent rents or package holidays, but the lack of details in today's Portugal release makes this rather tricky. Looking CPI, for which the statistics agency publishes some, limited, details:
• Core (excl. unproc. food and energy) saw some moderate acceleration Y/Y, to 2.06% from 1.96% in November.
• "The annual rate of change of the index for energy products decreased to -2.4% (-0.8% in November)"
• Food was mixed this time, with unprocessed food further accelerating (6.02% Dec vs 5.95% Nov) while processed food was lower than before (0.93% vs 1.15% prior).
• For reference, Portugal contributes 2.6% to the overall Eurozone HICP 2025 basket.
• The print comes after Spain HICP came in in line with expectations, at 3.0% Y/Y, down from 3.2% while Belgium HICP decelerated by 0.4pp to 2.2% (no consensus).
• France will be the next country to follow with national-level flash December HICP data, scheduled for next Tuesday, January 6.

GBPUSD has struggled to recovery meaningfully from earlier session lows, in contrast to EURUSD. That helped EURGBP briefly test Monday’s 0.8740 high. A move towards and through the 50-day EMA of 0.8749 would counter the current bear cycle in EURGBP. 

• There are a few factors which could support EURGBP upside in the coming months.
• First, the bar to renewed dovish front-end repricing appears to be lower for the BOE than the ECB (despite some hawkish tweaks to the BOE’s December guidance).  Eurozone growth momentum has been improving in recent months, while UK signals (e.g. from the labour market) remain soft.
• Second. The UK political situation still presents risks. Although sterling has recovered well since the Autumn budget, the May local elections present the next major test for the Labour party. A poor showing would place increasing pressure on PM Starmer and Chancellor Reeves.