- Summary:
- The EUR to GBP forecast for 2022 will be determine by central bank actions and by the geopolitical events out of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
The Euro to GBP forecast for 2022 will be decided by central bank action and geopolitics. However, with the United Kingdom out of the European Union, the Pound now sits in a position where its diverging fundamentals from that of single currency can provide traders of the EUR/GBP pair with definable trade opportunities.
EUR to GBP Forcast: COVID-19 Vaccinations, Central Bank Influence
When the COVID-10 pandemic began in 2020, one of the key focus points for tackling the pandemic was the development of vaccines. The launch of the AstraZeneca vaccine gave the UK a homegrown solution that it could deploy quickly within its population without going through the bottlenecks of importing vaccines from other countries. So while the UK was able to drive its vaccination rates swiftly and steadily across its local population, the COVID-19 vaccination campaign of the Eurozone was disjointed, and vaccination rates have lagged terribly in comparison. Deployment of vaccines across the EU member states has been very uneven.
The ability to drive vaccination nationwide quickly and rapidly ensured that the UK got a significant headstart over the EU in controlling the pandemic within its borders. Mass assembly venues such as sports centres, movie theatres, restaurants, supermarkets, and workplace venues opened quicker and with better coordination of the protocols than has been the case in the EU.
Expectedly, the quantitative easing programs have delivered inflation. In the UK, consumer inflation quickly rose to 30-year highs, prompting the Bank of England to increase interest rates in its December 2021 meeting. In contrast, the European Central Bank is yet to raise rates and only just announced on 10 March that it was ending its stimulus packages earlier than expected. The ECB had always maintained that it would keep its Pandemic Emergency Purchase Program (PEPP) for as long as possible, creating a sentiment among traders that the ECB would probably be the last of the major central banks to start tightening policy.
In any case, the BoE has acted quicker to raise rates, giving the GBP a headstart over the Euro.
EUR to GBP Forecast: Geopolitics
The geographical distance of the United Kingdom and Europe from the conflict zone in Ukraine exposes the EU more directly to the effects of that war. The United Nations says more than 2.8 million refugees have fled Ukraine to neighboring countries. The European countries of Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania are the immediate destinations of these refugees who must be sheltered, fed, clothed, and provided with medical and other support services. This forced and uncontrolled migration into Europe will have a huge economic impact on the EU economy in 2022. The UK lies further west and far from the conflict zone, which has allowed it to implement a more controlled immigration system to determine how many people it can take in within its means.
Apart from the refugee problem the EU now faces, there is the threat of direct violence from the war itself. So far, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a security alliance that features several EU states, has not gotten involved in the war. That could all change very quickly if Russia attacked Poland or Hungary. Russian forces have captured the area that houses the Chernobyl nuclear facility. It also took the Zaporizhzhia nuclear facility, the largest of its kind in Europe. The scale of danger that the EU now faces if the conflict will escalate if weapons of mass destruction are used.
The conflict is expected to be bearish for the Euro and less so for the British Pound. This sentiment is playing out in the FX market, where the EUR/GBP pair remains bearish. Due to the current fundamentals, what is the EUR to GBP forecast for 2022?
EUR to GBP Forecast
Last week, the EUR/GBP pair touched off lows, last seen in June 2016 at 0.8200. However, the rejection by the bulls at that price point has kept the price activity within the descending channel. This channel will guide price activity. The boxed area formed by the 0.84503 resistance and the descending channels’ upper border forms the immediate target following Monday’s violation of the 0.83932 resistance. If the price pulls back from here, a retest of 0.83892 follows.
If the bulls fail to defend this level, the 28 January/21 February lows at 0.83073 become the next downside target. The channel’s lower border at 0.82500 is a potential pitstop before the June 2016 low at 0.82000 becomes a new target. On the flip side, the sentiment only changes if the bulls can force a break of the boxed area. This would open the door for 0.85372 and 0.85952 to become additional targets to the north.
EUR/GBP: Daily Chart
Follow Eno on Twitter.