The war in Ukraine and the following financial sanctions imposed on Russia will trigger far larger shifts for Europe’s financial system and markets than earlier crises just like the coronavirus pandemic, economists have stated.
In gentle of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, European leaders have been pressured to quickly speed up plans to scale back their outsized dependence on Russian vitality. The European Parliament on Thursday referred to as for a right away and complete embargo of Russian oil, coal, nuclear fuel and gas.
Nonetheless, this aggressive decoupling comes at a worth for the European financial system, driving up already excessive inflation to document ranges and threatening to undermine the manufacturing restoration that started final yr as economies tried to re-emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic.
ING Head of World Macro Analysis Carsten Brzeski famous final week that Europe is especially on the threat of dropping worldwide competitiveness because of the war.
“For the continent, the war is much more of a game-changer than the pandemic ever was. I’m not talking just in terms of security and defense policies but notably about the entire economy,” Brzeski stated.
“The eurozone is now experiencing the downside of its fundamental economic model, that of an export-oriented economy with a large industrial backbone and a higher dependency on energy imports.”
Having benefited from globalization and the division of labor in latest a long time, the euro zone is now having to ramp up its inexperienced transition and pursuit of vitality autonomy, whereas on the identical time boosting spending on protection, digitization and training. Brzeski characterised this as a problem that “can and actually must succeed.”
“If and when it does, Europe should be well-positioned. But the pressure on household finances and incomes will remain huge until it gets there. Corporate profits, meanwhile, will remain high,” he stated.
“Europe is facing a humanitarian crisis and significant economic transition. The war is taking place in the ‘breadbasket’ of Europe, a key production area for grain and corn. Food prices will rise to unprecedented levels. Higher inflation in developed economies could be a matter of life and death in developing economies.”
Brzeski concluded that monetary markets had been “misguided” as European shares try to grind greater, including that “there’s no return to any sort of normality of any kind right now.”
Debt sustainability issues
This tectonic shift for the European, and certainly world, financial system will place further strain on central banks and governments caught between a rock and a tough place in juggling inflation in opposition to fiscal sustainability, economists acknowledge.
In a observe Thursday, BNP Paribas predicted {that a} quicker drive to decarbonize, greater authorities spending and debt, extra intense headwinds to globalization and better inflationary pressures would be an everlasting theme.
“This backdrop presents central banks with a more challenging environment in which to conduct policy and keep inflation on target, not only diminishing their ability to commit to a certain policy path but making policy mistakes more likely,” BNP Paribas Senior European Economist Spyros Andreopoulos stated.
He additionally famous that elevating rates of interest to rein in inflation will finally make life tough for fiscal authorities.
“While this is not an immediate concern, not least because governments have generally lengthened the average maturity of their debt in the low interest rate years, a higher interest rate environment may change the fiscal calculus as well. Eventually, debt sustainability concerns could resurface,” Andreopoulos stated.
Low inflation all through the euro zone’s latest historical past meant the European Central Financial institution was by no means pressured to select between fiscal sustainability and pursuing its inflation targets, since low inflation necessitated the accommodative financial coverage that aided fiscal sustainability.
“Politically, the ECB was able to – convincingly, in our view – deflect accusations that it was helping governments by pointing to low inflation outcomes,” Andreopoulos stated.
“This time around, the ECB is having to tighten policy to rein in inflation against the backdrop of even higher public debt, a legacy of the pandemic, and continued pressures on the public purse.”
