Euro Debt Volcano To Erupt?

‘It’ll blow like Vesuvius’: Euro €1trn debt volcano to erupt and ‘wipe out German economy'

 HARVEY JONES

If it explodes it could blow the European single currency apart and send shockwaves across the global economy.

Pressure is building in the European single currency, whose “fundamental flaw” is leading to profound and growing imbalances between its 19 member countries, which include Germany, France, Italy and Greece.If it explodes it could blow the European single currency apart and send shockwaves across the global economy.

Pressure is building in the European single currency, whose “fundamental flaw” is leading to profound and growing imbalances between its 19 member countries, which include Germany, France, Italy and Greece.

Jeremy Batstone-Carr, European strategist at Raymond James, has likened the threat to Vesuvius, which destroyed Pompeii almost 2,000 years ago and looms over the city of Naples today, “long dormant but certainly not deceased”.

Vesuvius is not expected to erupt any time soon but it is a different matter for the euro, Batstone-Carr warned. “Europe’s population and financial markets blithely go about their business seemingly unaware of the pressures building in the vast magma chamber that is the regional banking system.”

Under the single currency, fiscally sound Germany stands behind debt issued by poorer southern states. 

This is an effective subsidy, allowing “the more vulnerable economies of Italy, Spain, Greece and others to piggyback on Germany’s debt rating”, he said.

Latest European Central Bank (ECB) data shows these subsidies are growing, with TARGET 2 cross-border eurozone transfers suffering huge imbalances that “are growing with every day that passes”, Batstone-Carr said.

Germany is by far the biggest creditor, owed a massive €1.23trillion, while Italy has a deficit of €670billion followed by Spain at €484billion.

“Were the system to collapse, the Bundesbank would lose billions of euros owed to it by other national central banks and the ECB itself, plus an additional near €400billion of net losses, based on prevailing imbalances.”

Batstone-Carr warned: “This would wipe out the Bundesbank’s own balance sheet many times over.”

We risk “an eruption at the core of the European project’s financial system”, that would trigger “a chain of events which could escalate swiftly into something severe”, Batstone-Carr said, calling the danger “spine-tingling”.