October 14, 2019
What's happening in the German economy?
Well it's clearly slowing down, quite significantly. There are a number of structural and short-term factors for it. There's a Brexit uncertainty. There's a trade uncertainty and Germany is a big exporting nation. And there are question marks about the future of the car industry, which is highly significant. These are temporary but also structural factors. And the Brexit factor will come in, depending on what happens there.
Is socialism on the rise in Europe?
No, we don't really see that. We see the social democratic parties being in a fairly critical situation in most countries. There are exceptions. Portugal is clearly an exception. But apart from that, not very much. The politics of Europe has entered a phase where there is less ideology and more identity politics. And that explains a lot of what you are seeing.
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