Bernanke and Bank of England minutes awaited as Greece debates austerity bill Demonstrators outside the Greek Parliament during yesterday's 24-hour general strike and demonstration against austerity measures. Photograph: Kostis Ntantamis/Demotix/Corbis It looks like a day dominated by central bankers and Greek politicians, as monetary policy and austerity measures jostle for attention. The headline event is Ben Bernanke's semi-annual testimony to Congress. The Federal Reserve chairman will be quizzed over his views on the US economy and the chances of slowing the Fed's stimulus package. It could be quite dramatic - as shares tumbled worldwide last month when Bernanke talked about slowing the US bond-buying programme this year, only to roar back last week when he suddenly took a much more cautious view. Bernanke's up at 3pm BST (10am Washington time), though we'll get his prepared testimony 90 minutes earlier. As Michael Hewson of CMC Markets puts it: If Bernanke deviates from last week's dovish message he runs the risk of confusing the markets even more than he already has done with last week's unexpected intervention. At the moment there is a lot of speculation around a taper in September, which isn't that far away, but if Bernanke gives any indication that it could be further towards the back end of this year we could see more of a US dollar sell-off. While in the UK, we'll get the minutes of this month's meeting of the Bank of England's monetary policy committee - the first with Mark Carney in the governor's chair (at 9.30am). Much speculation over whether the MPC was divided over whether to launch another stimulus package of its own (in the event, it voted to leave rates and quantitative easing unchanged). I've gone for a 7-2 vote in the office sweepstake. UK unemployment data is also released at the same time as the minutes. And over in Greece, lawmakers will continue to debate the country's austerity bill -- which will put thousands of public sector jobs at risk. Workers and policemen of the municipality of Athens protesting in Syntagma square last night. Photograph: Andreas Papakonstantinou/Demotix/Corbis A vote will come very late tonight (perhaps midnight Athens time), with the government expected to narrowly win. Yesterday's general strike is over, but municipal workers will continue to protest against the planned layoffs. We'll be tracking all the latest events through the day as usual...