After weak April and May numbers, I’ve been on the lookout for possible hints that euro zone economies may now be flattening.

Austerity tends to drive down demand which also causes deficits to increase to the point where they stabilize GDP.

Therefore, if the euro zone just leaves their fiscal policies alone at some point those automatic fiscal stabilizers work to prevent further declines.

Meanwhile, no euro zone banks have had liquidity cut off by the ECB, and it doesn’t look like any euro zone govt will be missing any payments any time soon, so govt deficit spending will continue to add income and ‘savings’ to their real economies.

French Consumer Confidence Stalls as Hollande Readies Budget

June 26 (Bloomberg) — French consumer confidence stalled as President Francois Hollande prepared tax increases and spending cuts to help reduce the nation’s budget deficit.

Household sentiment was unchanged at 90 in June, national statistics Insee said today in a release from Paris. Economists expected a reading of 89, according to the median of 14 estimates gathered by Bloomberg News.

Broadbent Says Indicators Suggest U.K. GDP Growth May Be Flat

June 26 (Bloomberg) — Bank of England policy maker Ben Broadbent said that indicators suggest the U.K. economy may be broadly flat in the next quarter or two.

“The near-term indicators suggest that, abstracting from the various short-term distortions (the effect of the Golden Jubilee holiday, for example), output is broadly flat in the next quarter or two, as it has been for the past 18 months,” he said in answers to a questionnaire from the U.K. Treasury Committee published today in London.