The eurozone economy is expected to collapse in 2020. In countries such as Spain and Italy, the decline, more than 9 percent, will likely be much larger than emerging market economies. However, the key is to understand how and when the eurozone economies will recover.
There are three reasons why we should be concerned:
The eurozone weakness had already started in 2017, and disappointing economic figures continued throughout the following years. Many governments blamed the weakness on the Brexit and Trade War cards, but it was significantly more structural.
The eurozone abandoned all structural reforms in 2014 when the ECB started its quantitative easing program and expanded the balance sheet to record levels. Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Indexes were already in contraction, government spending remained too high, and the elevated tax wedge weighed on growth and jobs.
In 2019, almost 22 percent of the eurozone GDP gross added value came from the travel and leisure sector, a sector that will unlikely come back anytime soon, while the export sector is also likely to suffer a prolonged weakness.
Most of the eurozone governments are relying on leveraging the banks’ balance sheets in their “recovery plans.” A massive increase in loans, even with some form of state guarantee, is likely to cause significant strains on lending capacity and solvency in the coming years, even with massive targeted longer-term refinancing operations (TLTROs) and capital requirement reductions.
As most governments will massively increase deficits to combat the COVID-19 crisis, there’s a high likelihood of a massive increase in taxes that will make it more difficult to attract investment growth and jobs.
Most of the recovery plans are also aimed at bailing out the past and letting the future die. There are massive bailout packages for traditional conglomerates and industries, but investment in technology and research and development continues to have high burdens and no support.
Further Challenges
Almost 30 percent of the eurozone labor force is expected to be under some form of unemployment scheme, be it temporary, permanent, or self-employed cessation of activity. After a decade of recovery from the past crisis, the eurozone still had almost double the unemployment rate of its large peers, the United States and China. Germany may recover jobs fast, but France, Spain, and Italy, with important rigidities and tax burdens on job creation, may suffer large unemployment levels for longer.The eurozone also faces important challenges to its recovery due to a lack of technological and intellectual-property leadership. Those two factors will help China and the United States recover faster, as well as their having more flexible job markets and higher support for entrepreneurial activity through attractive taxation.
Considering the severity of the crisis, the eurozone is likely to need at last 10 percent of its GDP to rebuild the economy, but that figure is almost completely absorbed by the traditional sectors (airlines, autos, agriculture, tourism). Furthermore, the Green New Deal initiative includes severe restrictions to travel and energy-intensive industries that may act as a brake on future growth.
The ECB policy was already unnecessarily expansionary over the past few years, and now it has run out of tools to address the unprecedented challenge of recovery post-COVID-19. With negative rates, targeted liquidity programs, asset purchases of private and public debt, and a balance sheet that exceeds 42 percent of the eurozone GDP, the best it can do is to disguise some risk, not eliminate it.
We should also warn of adding massive monetary imbalances when demand for euros globally is acceptable but shrinking according to the Bank of International Settlements, and risk of redenomination remains in a politically unstable eurozone.
Our estimates show that, even with large fiscal and monetary stimulus, the eurozone economy will not recover its output and jobs until 2023, and debt rising to record highs, as well as monetary imbalances due to a massive supply of euros in a diminishing demand environment, may cause significant problems for the stability of the eurozone.
The eurozone needs to understand that if it decides to increase taxes to address the rising debt due to the COVID-19 response, its ability to recover will be irreparably damaged.
