Also, German Business Confidence figures were released. German business morale brightened more than expected in April, hitting its highest in nearly six years, a survey showed on Monday, suggesting company executives are more upbeat about the current state of Europe's largest economy. The Munich-based Ifo economic institute said its business climate index, based on a monthly survey of some 7,000 firms, rose to 112.9 from an unpwardly revised 112.4 in March. The reading, the highest since July 2011, came in stronger than a Reuters consensus forecast for a value of 112.5.

Thursday's session brought German and Spanish CPI figures. The inflation rate in Germany as measured by the consumer price index is expected to be 2.0% in April 2017. Based on the results available so far, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) also reports that the consumer prices are expected to remain unchanged from March 2017. The harmonised index of consumer prices for Germany, which is calculated for European purposes, too, is expected to increase by 2.0% year on year and to remain unchanged from March 2017 in April 2017.

The estimated Spanish annual inflation in April 2017 is 2.6%, according to the an advance indicator prepared by INE. This indicator provides an advance of the CPI which, if confirmed, would Increase of three tenths in its annual rate, since in the month of March this variation was 2.3%. In this behavior, the rise in prices of tourist services Easter. The stability of electricity prices is also influenced by the Fall experienced last year.

However, the focus of the session was on ECB interest rate decision and the following press conference. At today’s meeting the Governing Council of the ECB decided that the interest rate on the main refinancing operations and the interest rates on the marginal lending facility and the deposit facility will remain unchanged at 0.00%, 0.25% and -0.40% respectively. The Governing Council continues to expect the key ECB interest rates to remain at present or lower levels for an extended period of time, and well past the horizon of the net asset purchases.

Mario Draghi showed growing enthusiasm about the state of the euro-area economy, while cautioning that inflation pressures remain too weak to contemplate paring back stimulus. “It’s true that growth is improving, things are going better,” the European Central Bank president told reporters in Frankfurt on Thursday after the Governing Council agreed to keep stimulus settings unchanged. “In 2016 we were speaking of a fragile and uneven recovery. Now it’s solid and broad.”

Friday was marked by Eurozone CPI and M3 Money Supply figures. Euro area annual inflation is expected to be 1.9% in April 2017, up from 1.5% in March 2017, according to a flash estimate from Eurosta. Looking at the main components of euro area inflation, energy is expected to have the highest annual rate in April (7.5%, compared with 7.4% in March), followed by services (1.8%, compared with 1.0% in March), food, alcohol & tobacco (1.5%, compared with 1.8% in March) and non-energy industrial goods (0.3%, stable compared with March).

The annual growth rate of the broad monetary aggregate M3 increased to 5.3% in March 2017, from 4.7% in February, averaging 4.9% in the three months up to March. The components of M3 showed the following developments. The annual growth rate of the narrower aggregate, including currency in circulation and overnight deposits (M1), increased to 9.1% in March, from 8.4% in February.

This week markets will be looking at:

Spanish Manufacturing PMI (Tuesday 9:15)

Spanish Unemployment Change (Wednesday 9:00)

German Unemployment Change (Wednesday 9:55)

Prelim Flash GDP (Wednesday 11:00)