As Americans prepare for Thanksgiving, looming elections in Germany will come to the fore this week, as well as the outlook for Britain as the government hurtles towards Brexit.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel kicks off the political week on Sunday with a press conference in which she is widely expected to announce she'll stand for a fourth term in next year's federal elections. Merkel, known to grateful Syrians as 'Mother Merkel' after she agreed to take in 1 million refugees last year, has led Germany since 2005. However, in recent months she's been on the defensive as populist forces, emboldened by a refugee-related backlash, make political headway.

In Britain, the post-Brexit outlook for public finances and the economy will be laid bare in Wednesday's mini-budget, or so-called autumn statement.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond will deliver forecasts compiled by the Office for Budgetary Responsibility, which is a state agency but independent from the government. Reports suggest that the figures will reveal a £100 billion ($123.3 billion) black hole in public finances.

Nevertheless, Hammond will exercise the limited fiscal levers at his disposal to mitigate the Brexit-related fallout, with "just about managing" families predicted to be a key beneficiary. His statement will be closely watched for any sweeteners for companies to convince them to stay in the U.K. after its divorce from the EU.

On Wednesday, in the eurozone IHS Markit will deliver preliminary, or "flash," November purchasing mangers' indices for Germany, France and the eurozone as a whole.

Credit Suisse expects a flat eurozone composite PMI at 53.3, with growth in the services component offsetting a declining manufacturing index.

It sees the German composite PMI holding steady at 55.1, with the manufacturing index rising and the services PMI falling, and a slight decline in the French composite index to 51.5 from 51.6.

The PMI figures will provide more clues on the fourth-quarter growth outlook after confirmation on Tuesday that third-quarter eurozone GDP growth held steady at 0.3%, with the economy expanding by 1.6% year-on-year. Growth has slowed from a quarterly pace of 0.7% in the first quarter.

In October the eurozone composite PMI rose to 53.3 from 52.6, representing the fastest pace of growth so far this year as the German economy picked up steam.

The Markit data will be followed on Thursday by German business confidence indicators from the CES Ifo research institute.

Analysts expect the overall business climate gauge to rise in November, thanks to an improvement in businesses' expectations. However, companies' assessment of the current situation is likely to stagnate.

In October the Ifo indices beat expectations, with the overall climate index rising to 110.5, the highest point since April 2014.

On Thursday come updated GDP figures from Germany and Spain, which earlier reports showed expanded by 0.2% and 0.7%, respectively, in the third quarter. The performance of the two economies' components parts will be the main point of interest. The reports will be followed by the U.K.'s final third-quarter GDP reading on Friday. The initial assessment pointed to 0.5% quarter-on-quarter growth.

From Japan on Friday comes October consumer price data. The inflation rate stood at minus 0.5% in September and consumer prices have hovered between marginal growth and deflation for the whole of the year. The price data will reflect the first full month after the Bank of Japan in September adopted a revised package of measures including targeted bond buying to control the spread between short and long-term debt yields.

From the corporate world, U.K. retailers will be doing best on Friday to spur sales by aping the Black Friday promotions of their U.S. cousins.

But Walmart's (WMT) - Get ReportAsda - which bought the whole jamboree to British shores more than a decade ago - isn't expected to participate after recusing itself last year. On Thursday it emerged as the weakest of Walmart's international divisions in the parent's third-quarter results.

Another key event next week will be Italian bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena's shareholder vote on Thursday on its debt restructuring and an associated share sale worth up to €5 billion ($5.3 billion).

The revamp will be the Italian banks' third capital restructuring within the past three years. It was the worst performer by a long stretch in European Banking Authority stress tests in July. These showed the bank would have imploded under its hypothetical worst-case scenario.