Page 21 - September October 2018 Disruption Report Flip Book

MONETARY POLICY
SEJPATN.U-AORCYT.20210818
Even though these are preliminary figures and are likely to be revised once national authorities release the fuller picture of the quarter, it is now looking unlikely that the Eurozone will reach the ECB’s growth projections of 2% for 2018. If current trends continue, the ECB could reconsider its future plans.” (The Guardian, 10/30/18; Wall Street Journal, Paul Hannon, Nina Adam and Eric Sylvers, 10/30/18)
The Eurozone’s current state and future outlook
In an interview with The American Interest, French author Bernard-Henri Levy discussed his pessimism about the future prospects of the EU, saying:
In America, the people achieved a very rare thing. It cost a lot, by the way—look at the
Civil War—but you built continental patriotism. By the victory of the unionists against the confederates, you built a state where you can come from Texas or from Nebraska, you can be white or not, you can be of any faith there is, and still adhere to a common faith, which is patriotism. I saw that just after September 11, when you could see American flags on every house. This is America, and it’s a credit to America. In Europe, we are not up to this. There is no European patriotism; there is no European spirit. Europe has no flesh, no face, and as General de Gaulle said, no phone number.
So what remains? Look at our bank notes, the euros. Compare them to yours. On a bank note, you’re supposed have to have a grand man or grand woman embodying the spirit of the new patriotism. When the euro was created, we were unable to decide if it would be Goethe, or Dante, or Blaise Pascal or whoever, so what did we put on the currency? We chose broken bridges, or as Martin Heidegger would say, roads that go nowhere. That is crazy. Such a currency says a lot about the country, by the way. I understood a lot about America when I discovered what is written on the dollar, the three Latin verses and why they are there.
In Europe, we have this crazy currency. We don’t know who the President is. We don’t know the bureaucracy in Brussels. This is a point for the adversaries of Europe! So Europe without a face is doomed, and it is so doomed that I make a prediction in my book: If there is not a real wake-up call, if there is not a real saut en avant, a jump ahead, the euro will collapse.
There is no example in modern history of a common currency that works without a common political agenda. If you look at the past three centuries in the West, you have six examples
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