Weighed down by the gloomy outlook for the European economy, with the possibility of a stoppage of Russian gas supplies, the euro plunged on Wednesday July 13 below the symbolic threshold of one dollar, which is a first since December 2002, nearly a year after its launch.
The single European currency has depreciated by 12% since the beginning of the year and its decline has increased in recent weeks, settling at 0.9998 dollars, Wednesday at 2:45 p.m. Paris time.
Rampant inflation
It is mainly suffering from galloping inflation in the United States, which is leading to an earlier rise in American and British interest rates, faster than that of European Central Bank (ECB) rates, and from the exposure of countries of the euro zone to the fallout from the conflict in Ukraine, which raises fears of a slowdown in growth, or even a recession in the event of a complete halt in Russian gas deliveries.
The dollar, for its part, benefits from its status as a safe haven in a context dominated by the deterioration of the economic outlook: the American currency is evolving at its highest level for twenty years against the other major currencies and for twenty-four years against the yen.