12:06 PM EDT, 03/20/2025 (MT Newswires) -- European stock markets closed mostly lower in Thursday trading as the Stoxx Europe 600 was down 0.47%, Germany's DAX dropped 1.28%, the FTSE 100 in London was off 0.12%, France's CAC 40 lost 0.93%, while the Swiss Market Index was up 0.33%.

The European Central Bank said Thursday in its latest economic bulletin that the economy, which stagnated in Q4, is expected to remain weak in the near term. It said consumer confidence is "fragile," and that households have yet to be encouraged enough by rising real incomes to increase their spending significantly.

The European Union could delay implementing an initial set of planned counter-tariffs on US goods through mid-April, European Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic said Thursday. The bloc had reportedly proposed re-imposing tariffs on some 4.5 billion euros ($4.88 billion) of US products April 1, followed by another 18 billion euros of goods April 13.

In the UK, employment increased by 9,000 between in January from December, and by 44,000 from a year earlier, the Office for National Statistics reported Thursday. Payrolled employees for Q4 dropped by 9,000 from the previous quarter but increased by 72,000 compared with a year earlier.

In Germany, producer prices for industrial products rose 0.7% in February compared with a year earlier, according to the Federal Statistical Office, which attributed the rise mainly to an increase in prices for capital goods.

And in corporate news, UK oil and gas giant Shell has moved up the target start date to 2026 from 2027 to begin exporting natural gas from Venezuela's Dragon gas field to Trinidad and Tobago, Reuters reported, citing two people familiar with the project. Shell did not immediately reply to a request for comment from MT Newswires.

French pharmaceutical company Sanofi said Thursday it plans to purchase Dren Bio's experimental autoimmune treatment DR-0201 for $600 million. The deal, which is expected to close in Q2, also includes up to $1.3 billion in milestone-based payments tied to development progress and potential product launches, the company said.

British pharmaceutical company Akari Therapeutics said Thursday that it has named Abizer Gaslightwala president and chief executive officer, starting April 21. Gaslightwala was most recently senior vice president and franchise head for US Oncology at Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Akari said.

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