Buiter: Migrant Crisis “May Signal The Beginning Of The End” For EU
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
09/18/2015
Earlier this month, in a call that grabbed headlines across the mainstream financial media, Citi chief economist Willem Buiter made “some kind of recession” his team’s base case scenario for the next two years.
The rationale: China mainly, and EM more broadly. The solution: why, “helicopter money” of course.
Unfortunately for the EU – which Buiter says is laboring under “already excessive public debt and the pro-cyclical nature of the constraints imposed by the Stability and Growth Pact and its myriad offspring” – member countries now face a growing problem that can’t be immediately “fixed” by cranking up the printing presses, namely, an influx of asylum seekers fleeing Syria’s four-year civil war.
As documented in these pages extensively, Europe’s migrant crisis threatens to undermine the spirit of the Schengen Agreement and the events that unfolded on Hungary’s border with Serbia over the past week presage what may be in store for the region should recalcitrant nations refuse to comply with the quotas Brussels wants to enforce in an effort to settle hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers.
As Slovakia put it earlier this week, if Germany attempts to use its financial leverage to force other nations to take on migrants, it would “bring the end of the EU.” We’ve also warned that any effort on the part of Berlin to impose its will risks fanning the flames not only of nationalism but of religious intolerance, especially given the likelihood that those opposed to settling the migrants will be predisposed to stirring up fears of ISIS operatives slipping into Europe disguised as refugees.
The Rest…HERE
