Bloombergs European Headquarters in london. Breaking news from the iea, the International Energy agency. The report is out and the iea says opecs supply they see opecs supply jumping the most in four years on saudi surges or beget we had a story saying iran is the latest country to jump on the bandwagon, asking for opec production to the cut. Nymex at 54 brent 59. Chinas economy is in the spotlight with all Global Economic indicators pointing to a deepening slowdown. Stocks are headed for their biggest drop in weeks. Bloombergs chief asia economist joins us now from beijing. Tom orlik. Gdp came in target on 7 . The data actually disappointed. What should we read into all this . Tom i think that is right, francine. There was some good news. The premier said he wanted 7 growth for the year. In the first quarter, he got it. Gdp coming in at 7 . There was also bad news. A lot of the monthly data was disappointing, in particular industrial output which is the main monthly measure of growth. It slumped in march. The lowest level since the financial crisis. If you look at the headline, it is reassuring, but the markets are paying more attention to the highfrequency monthly data. What that is suggesting is that chinas slowdown has further to go in the months ahead. Francine what does this data tell us about the risk of deflation . Tom i think signs of deflation are nothing new for chinas economy. We have falling factory prices for much of the last several years. What is new in todays data is that it shows deflation has become an economywide issue. The gdp deflator has gone into negative territory for the First Time Since the financial crisis. I think that raises a couple of issues. Falling prices mean that real Interest Rates are higher. That means chinese businesses are paying more tomorrow, more to invest, at exactly the time the government needs to be ramping up this kind of activity. Secondly, as we know from the experience in japan, if deflation is sustained, the result could be a vicious spiral down as consumers delay purchases, demand weakens growth slows, and prices fall even further. Francine tom orlik there from beijing about the latest gdp figures from china. Now to one of our top corporate stories. No kia to by alcatel for 16. 6 billion. The Alcatel Lucent ceo joins us now on the phone from paris. First of all, congratulations. This is hugely exciting to investors. How confident are you at this point that this will go through without any hitches . First, thank you. I guess i should say that i am very proud of what has been achieved. We announced today that these that this new Global Leader in the Tech Industry is the clear outcome of the process i started a few years ago. [indiscernible] proud of that and proud of the success. Im quite comfortable on our ability to get in different jurisdictions. It could take 912 months to close the deal, but i dont foresee any major issue. Francine mr. Combes, you expect this to go without any problems . Where do you see the toughest regulations . Michel i see this deal going straightforward. [indiscernible] it should be wellreceived in the different jurisdictions. As you can expect, we are involved in we need to get the clearance in all of them. As usual, the french, u. S. Europe, china and some other [indiscernible] that is iwhy i say 912 months. I dont expect any issue in most of them. Francine what about the political scene . It seems the french government has given this merger its blessing. Do you have the same blessing from the u. S. And chinese governments . Michel as you can imagine they have welcomed this project for quite a while. I explained to you [indiscernible] now, to find the right partner to get the opportunity to work. We are working with different governments to make sure that all the stakeholders would support such a combination. The french government as of yesterday announced that they were supportive of the deal. [indiscernible] that is i guess, a good example of strong roads in all countries. Francine you were saying that you already have the support of the u. S. And china or you think it wont be a problem to achieve . Michel i am convinced that all the governments, in the same way france is doing, will support this. The world Needs Technology to drive the transition to digital. That is what we are doing right now. I dont first see major issues. Lets wait and see in the coming weeks. We will see how it will be heard by the others. Francine on the french government, we also understand that of course they seem to support this, but at the same time they will monitor any developments. Have you had to promise them no job cuts in france . Michel the discussion with the french government was easy. First, the research in france has been done. [indiscernible] when people say it is impossible to restructure in france that is not true. Now, this new stage we have said to the french government, we will keep the same number evident boy hes for the years to come same number of employees for the years to come. We have said that we would recruit up to 500 new engineers in france. That is something which was needed by nokia. [indiscernible] all in all, in the interest of the enterprise, it is great to invest more in france. Francine what happens to Alcatel Lucent as a stand alone company trying to divest assets . What happens to those assets in the combined group . Michel there is only one. We have said months ago that this company is quite dependent quite independent from the rest of Alcatel Lucent. What i have reconfirmed today is that it will not be part of the new nokia group. Either it will be for an ipo, or it could be just a matter of disposal. It will become independent and will become an enterprise of its own. Francine we were speaking to a lot of analysts yesterday and today. They say this is a merger which strategically makes sense, a merger which is difficult to pull off operationally, but how did you do it now . How did it start . Michel i guess it is perfect timing, meaning that today we have a fantastic acceleration of the industry which will require lots of investment. It is better to do it before. That is first. Second we are facing strong competition from the chinese, from the u. S. , so we needed to react. Third, the two companies are now clearly healthy companies. You have two healthy companies, so it is the right time to put them together. That would have been much more difficult in the past. So that is a good way to move forward. What you have always to be careful of is to make sure that you have the right governance which provides clarity, and which provides [indiscernible] that was one of my recommendations. There is a Clear Company which is leading, which is nokia. We want to avoid any ego fights between each other. I strongly believe that the timing is right the setup is right, and the companies are ready in order to win this new exciting journey that they are going to enter in. Francine what is your biggest aspiration for the new company . We were talking about how you could rival competitors not only in china but in the u. S. What is the first thing you should go after . Michel my best wish for the company is that we embrace what Alcatel Lucent did. The world of 5g, which requires Broadband Access and cloud for providing the applications and functions it needs to have all those components together. That was the strategy i prevented a year ago. We see that chinese and americans are trying to follow the same now. We feel that we have shifted the industry. My real wish is that the new nokia takes the lead in this new industry not only for the providers, but also extending the portfolio towards other types of customers. That is what i am aspiring for. Francine michel combes, thank you so much for joining us on the pulse today. Still ahead on the pulse, the European Union takes on google. We will look at the charges the tech giant faced and we will hear from george soros. Why he doesnt expect the fed to raise rates. Later, an exclusive interview with a2a. Stay with us. We are just getting started. Francine coming up later today, the ecb Rate Decision is out at 12 45 p. M. President mario draghi will face questions on qe. Stick with bloomberg for all of that coverage. That is at 1 30 p. M. London time. Joining us is our chief euro area economist. Great to have you on the program. We had that really good forecast from the imf for the eurozone yesterday. Today, no policy change expected from mario draghi. I guess he will be fielding questions on whether he is optimistic. Why are we so worried about whether qe stays . Weve just started it. First of all, he will be quite pleased with himself, with what the ecb has accomplished in such a short period of time where Inflation Expectations are headed, and the Growth Prospects improving. On this background of cheaper oil, weak euro and investment prospects. I think he should be quite happy. The banks are indicating that lending numbers are gradually improving. Francine he has been doing a good job at putting the euro that were. How much of the relatively less weakness in europe has to do with cheap oil prices . Antonio there is not only what theyve engineered themselves with qe but it is a bit of a mixed blessing. It is also dragging down inflation. Also, it is interesting to see how this week euro will affect inflation. Overall, i think it is quite positive. There is a lot of leverage in the euro area. In terms of the cyclical support, i think the forces are quite positive. Francine it seems that he will have to end qe a little sooner. I dont know why they are not more worried about greece instead of qe, but qe has been in place for six weeks. How is mario draghi going to respond to these questions . Are you going to have to pull out from providing stimulus earlier than expected . Antonio it is too early to have that discussion. I agree with you. It just started. Right now, we have a lot of tailwinds, but those could reverse. The underlying structure of problems are there. You need to go through that. As draghi has said many times, this will provide support for governments to do the right thing, to put forward Structural Reforms perhaps to launch public investment. All of these issues, if those policies are not enacted, you will see a problem. You will see problems coming up in 2016. Even inflation, we believe that inflation is probably a little on the optimistic side. Our forecast is lower than that. September 2016, the right time to exit, too early to say. I dont see why we should be discussing earlier than that. Francine what would you ask draghi . Is it greece . Antonio certainly, greece, but im afraid that this is more the politicians. I think im interested on some technical aspects of inflation. How does he see inflation with the latest developments on oil and Exchange Rates . How does he see this pass through from the Exchange Rate into inflation . I would like to see how on the other side he sees those passthrough from the weaker euro into higher inflation. That would be quite interesting to see. Francine im sure he will be asked. Thank you so much for joining us. Antonio Garcia Pascual there. Coming up, billionaire investor Stan Druckenmiller sat down with bloomberg for an exclusive interview. Francine Stan Druckenmiller has one of the best track records in the history of investing. Hes worked with george soros and hes been sounding the alarm about the feds zero Interest Rate policies. Stephanie ruhle got his view in an exclusive bloomberg interview. Stan we are not going to see anything for a year and a half. They set up metrics eight or nine months ago. They were met three or four months ago. Then they changed the metrics. I have no confidence that you are going to see rate hikes in september or december or whenever. When they lay out metrics and they change, and they changed again, and again, who knows when they are going to go . By then, how far will the debt go . This is all pay me now or pay me later. I agree if you go a quarter, it might do a few things to markets, but if you wait and go a year later, it is going to do much more. Stephanie you have been worrying about fed policy for over a year. Why did a you ringing the bell so loud . Stan im not really ringing it so loud. I gave a private speech to my private community in florida in january, where there would be no press. Stephanie seen on you. Welcome to the world of social media. Stan it has gone viral and theres all sorts of headlines. Im predicting a crash, im predicting doom im not. Im simply saying that the risk reward of going early is a much better bet than waiting and going late. Why am i saying this . Mainly because every article i read says just the opposite. Francine hes quite a character. We will have more of that exclusive interview throughout the day right here on bloomberg tv and bloomberg. Com. Francine welcome to the pulse live from bloombergs European Headquarters in london. Chinas economy expanded at the weakest pace since 2009 last quarter. Outlook investment and retail data are pointing to a slowdown. Nokia has agreed to by Alcatel Lucent. The purchase will create the Worlds Largest supplier of mobile phone equipment. The deal will see nokia surpass huahue. Google has been told it will face new charges on violating antitrust rules. Google could face fines and constraints on how it delivers internet search. Rivals, including microsoft have excused the search giant of highlighting its own web services and results at their expense. Lets get more on google from our team of reporters. We are joined in brussels and here in the studio. Lets start with you. What are we expecting today . We are expecting action for the first time in more than four years. When you start investigating these allegations over search we are expecting objections. We are also expecting an open investigation into android. That is what we have so far. It also brings up the threat of fines or an order for google to change the way it does business. Francine this is huge. This is a fouryear probe. What google is afraid of is what it could do. Does it change the way it presents search results . Does it change the algorithms it uses . Francine what are we expecting . I guess it depends on how much the commission wants, right . Aoife to start, it raises a lot of risks for google. They have a chance to defend themselves. They have a chance to argue that what they are doing is justified. There are a lot of other companies that complain that google doesnt play fair. When you search for something, you get googles results and you dont get theirs. Anything that would force them to change the way their page looks, to give space to rivals, that matters a lot. That hits them where it really matters. Francine tony, is this not only about this is basically about they could potentially ask google to change the way it runs in certain instances. How significant could it be . Tony they will have to have two businesses. They will have a product for the u. S. And a separate product for here in the eu. They wont be able to control the user experience. It will be a fundamental change to the way they do business. Francine and we are not going to find out about this today right . What we are expecting today is something more general and they will have a lengthy process to come down on them hard if they want to. Aoife anything like fines or an order could be a long way away. Today, what we see is the eu saying what it wants to do with this part of the case. There are other parts of the case. It has complaints about travel and mapping. We could see other escalations in the next year or two. This is just a turning point. It hasnt been clear that the ecb sees a huge problem here. Now it is saying it definitely does. Francine is this a signal that this Commission Means business . Is it the first case that will really get to understand how the situation will play out . Aoife . I was asking whether aoife it is one of the eus biggest cases. Theres a huge number of complainers. Theres a lot of pressure on the European Commission from politicians and other countries, complaining, why doesnt it act . Even obama has mentioned that the eu is aggressive with internet companies. It feels that there are genuine problems here and it is acting on those. This is something that it is doing. Francine i guess thats what we need to make sure of, that they are fail and balanced they are fair and balanced. Tony google has challenges all through europe. Last year it came under fire from privacy regulators over the way it handles court rulings. The European Parliament last year made an unprecedented move saying they urged the eu to look at breaking up google if it didnt change its business practices. They are under fire on a lot of fronts. Francine you were talking about the fact that it could force google to make changes. Would you and i notice as users, or is it more for the competitors saying theyve been using their advantage to an unfair level . Tony something in terms of how they do it. If it is the algorithm, we might not notice as much. If the eu forces them to put different boxes all over the page, that would be immediately apparent to everybody. Francine thank you so much. Check out todays twitter question. How tough should the eu be on google . Tweet us your thoughts. Guy johnson is doing a debate on the elections. I know he follows the story as well. Coming up, an exclusive interview with the head of italys largest regional utility. As we go to break, lets take a look at golfs numerous superstore. Superstar. Jordan spieth sporting his new green jacket. Jordan, here you are. Help us understand what goes through your mind at this moment. Well, francine welcome back to the pulse live from bloombergs london headquarters. Italys biggest regional utility posts earnings along with a plan that will see the company invest over 2 billion euros. For more, we are joined by the ceo. Great to have you on the program. Thank you for coming in. Give us a sense of energy prices. This is something that could boost companies or hold back companies. How do