* A daily view from EMEA Economics Politics Editor Mike
Peacock The views expressed are his own.

LONDON, Sept 30 (Reuters) – Euro zone inflation figures are
due and after Germany’s rate held steady at 0.8 percent the
figure for the currency bloc as a whole could marginally exceed
forecasts and hold at 0.4 percent.

One upside for the currency bloc is the falling euro which
has broken below its 2013 lows and is down almost nine percent
from the peak it hit against the dollar in May.

With U.S. money printing about to end next month and
speculation intensifying about the timing of a first interest
rate rise from Washington, there are good reasons to think that
this trend could continue.

If it does, it would push the prices of imports up while
making it easier for euro zone countries to sell abroad which
should have an upward impact on both growth and inflation. The
impact won’t be instant, however, as today’s figures will
demonstrate.

Either way, there is no chance of the European Central Bank
doing anything new at its monthly meeting on Thursday having
pushed through a range of new measures last time.

We’ve had an early flurry of data. German retail sales
jumped 2.5 percent in August, more than reversing a 1.1 percent
fall in July.

Britain’s GfK consumer confidence index showed consumer
morale edged down from a recent nine-year high as households
became slightly less upbeat about the outlook for the economy.
The Nationwide housing survey reported a 0.2 percent monthly
fall in house prices – the first fall in more than a year –
though that still leaves them up 9.4 percent year-on-year.

Final GDP figures for the second quarter, due later, should
confirm a quarterly growth rate of 0.8 percent, way above
anything the euro zone could hope for.

European Union ambassadors will meet to decide whether the
Ukraine ceasefire justifies an easing of sanctions against
Russia. Moscow is lobbying for that, calling for a “reset 2.0”
in relations with Washington and saying the situation in Ukraine
that led to Western sanctions was improving thanks to Kremlin
peace initiatives.

But the killing of seven Ukrainian soldiers when a
separatist shell hit their armoured personnel carrier near the
main airport at Donetsk in eastern Ukraine demonstrates why it
is too early for the EU to back off. It was the largest loss of
life among Ukrainian soldiers in a single incident since a
ceasefire came into force on Sept. 5.

A Russian newspaper reported on Monday that U.S. oil giant
ExxonMobil is suspending cooperation with Russia’s state-owned
company Rosneft on offshore drilling in the Arctic due to
sanctions.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said there were good reasons
to continue the European Union’s energy partnership with Russia
for now but that might change if Moscow continues to violate
basic principles.

U.S. warplanes attacked Islamic State targets in Syria
overnight in raids that a group monitoring the war said killed
civilians as well as jihadist fighters. The U.S. military said
on Monday an American air strike targeted IS vehicles near to a
grain storage facility, but it had no evidence so far of
civilian casualties.

A phalanx of new European Commissioners will be subject to
confirmation hearings in the European Parliament over the course
of this week and next. The parliament will probably want to
claim at least one scalp on the list in a demonstration of its
influence. Nominees from Britain, France, Spain and Hungary may
face particularly stiff interrogation.

Six hearings on Tuesday feature the Greek nominee to handle
migration and home affairs and the Austrian nominated to run
relations with neighbouring regions and states wanting to join
the EU.

One of the highlights will be the appearance on Thursday of
Pierre Moscovici, picked as the next economic and financial
commissioner. Some have said putting the former French finance
minister in charge of issues like budgetary discipline is like
putting a fox in charge of the hen coop given Paris’s repeated
inability to get its deficit down to the EU limit.

Moscovici will probably get the nod, not least because his
role will be overseen by the fiscally hawkish Valdis Dombrovskis
from Latvia.

Romania’s central bank holds a rate-setting meeting at which
it is expected to further cut its benchmark interest rate to a
record low of 3.0 percent to aid a slowing economy.

(Editing by Andrew Heavens)

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