Bar, hotel, and Davos’ World Economic Forum Winds without windows have two themes dominating conversations. The dominance of the United States and the decline of Europe.
If the politicians and the highest executive were unknown the scale of the continent before they got off at Swiss ski resorts, there was no ambiguity at the end of Donald Trump.
The 47th President of the United States won in a meeting hall packed through a video, reducing European regulations, exporting cars flooded in the United States, and fined and penalized for Apple, Google, and Facebook. I opposed it.
NATO members added that they would not be able to free roads from the US security guarantee, and demanded that they would increase defense spending to 5 % of GDP.
“From the perspective of the United States, the EU handles us very unfairly and very bad,” he said. “I have a great dissatisfaction with the EU.”
Search for soul
The return of Trump to the White House has caused the waves of the soul search throughout Europe. His first doctrine in the United States and tariff threats to the EU product wondered how European elite could close the growing economic bay with the United States.
In a countless conversation in Davos, business leaders and politicians have made the EU facing the problem. From the stagnation of the core economy in France and Germany to the United States, from the Technology Titan in the United States, the rise of populism and the war at the gateway to the Ukrainian War.
Long before Trump arrived in the White House, the European Commission was outsourced to the former European Central Bank President Mario Doragi to recommend solutions, and the overall productivity of 27 blocks of 27 people. He showed concerns about decreasing and slowing.
In his 393 report, Dragi warns that Europe’s productivity is “weak and very weak,” and sought deeper integration and large -scale adjusted investment.
Since then, the situation has worsened. The International Currency Fund predicts 2.7 % of the US economy in 2025, for only 1 % in the Euro area. German GDP is currently contracting for two years.
Karenhalis, the manager of the consultant Bain and CO macro trend, explained the report full of Dragi’s fate as “a punch of the face”, but “somehow, it does not enter. I added. “
“This is a gathering of Europe,” said Harris. “People come from all over the world, but we are in Europe. There is a sense of how late Europe is from world -class leadership in business and innovation.”
She suggested that the EU leaders are progressing through seven sorrow in the world of their economic status in the world. “Now, we feel like we are negotiating and depression, and we have such a tranquility as people are absorbing it.”
The European Commission’s President Ursla von del Rayen tried to charate the course in the next stage in a hard hit speech.
“In the past 25 years, Europe has been promoting growth by rising global trade, which depends on the cheap energy from Russia, and Europe is too often outsourced, but The era is gone, “she told the business and political leaders she gathered.
Von Der Leyen said the committee would lay out a five -year roadmap next week. Based on the recommendation of Dragi, he said that it would increase the 300 million euros of the EU family’s cash, including the plan for savings and investment unions. Every year, flowing from the continent allows you to invest at home. A capital market coalition is planned to stop money from the continent and the flow of companies.
“Europe must shift gears to maintain growth in the next quarter of the century,” she said.
America’s first America
U.S. technology may be visible anywhere on the Promenade, the main street of Alpine Resort.
Meta demonstrated a smart glass designed by Ray -Ban. Google has shown a Project Astra, a personal assistant equipped with a new AI. Uber has demonstrated the delivery robot. However, it was difficult to find a European company being a hot topic. It except for Zurich insurance, which was freely distributed to Bobble hats.
DRAGHI’s report emphasized that the disparity: EU has not created a 100 million euros company from zero in the past 50 years, but the United States has built more than 100 million euros during that period. 。
In Uber’s pavilion, DARA KHOSROWSHAHI had just returned from Washington and his inauguration ceremony.
“It’s an exciting time,” said the highest executive of a taxi and delivery app. He donated $ 1 million to Trump’s first fund. “The gathering of business leaders was very extraordinary, and I felt very positive. You can see that there is a window regardless of whether you agree with the words. There is permission to move quickly.
“The sense of optimism and behavior was obvious. It’s time to execute.”
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However, few executives were convinced that the EU could be comparable to the energy. “I heard that the EU is talking about the willingness to change,” said the European Bank of Europe. “The truth of the problem is to create more bureaucracy and more complexity every time they do something, they need to have a huge reset.”
Nico Litangen, the boss of the world’s largest Norwegian Sobulinwells Fund, has recently returned in New York in New York without doubting the strength of our “animal spirit”.
“Less regulations, less red tape, high speed, and high enthusiasm,” he said. “At the same time, you don’t see the same thing in Europe. I love Europe, but I don’t show much there.”
Unless Europe acts fast, the social fabric is at risk that the 1.6TN fund has warned Tangen, which owns about 1.5 % of all listed companies in the world.
“It depends on how pessimistic you want to go,” said Tangen, a former hedge fund boss. “But as you know, it costs the whole social fabric, that is, it costs money, right?
“So, in order for society to continue to function as now, it is necessary to have a competitive economy.”
It gets frayed with a seam
For politicians who want to summarize the continental economy, Trump’s demands for European automobile companies to build factories and create employment in the United States emphasizes the challenges they face in the soil of the house.
Volkswagen, the largest car manufacturer in Germany, said that he is trying to close the three factories in the home market, but will increase investment in the United States.
VW will double the current market share in the United States to about 4 %, and the highest finance manager Arno Antlitz told Reuters. “I need additional initiative … to double the market share, it must be even more local.”
German vice -president and Finance Minister Robert Haybeck said that Germany needed to build cheaper electric vehicles, saying that cheap electricity was needed.
“I hope everyone has heard it. I hope all German politicians understand it. It’s a structural crisis,” he said.
“Our economy has not grown since 2018. The possibility of our growth has decreased since a year and a half.
“It means that business models must be reformed because business models depend on cheap gas or inexpensive fossil energy from Russia because they depend on two factors. But I don’t think it will come again.
Even if Von del Rayen wants to shift the gear, domestic political pressure may brake a closer economic integration plan.
The far -right Alternative Fools German party is expected to make a significant profit in the German election on February 28, but does not enter the government. French President Emmanuel Macron has undergone strong pressure from the national rally of Marine Le Pen. Neither parties will further support the integration of the EU, both of which give a strict ethnic tone in political discussions.
And it is difficult to achieve the harmony vision of Pan EU’s capital market, Von del Reien, in harmony with Pan EU, while individual members are going to bat for their national banks and stock exchanges. You can see it. The German government has opposed the recent acquisition bond of Commermerzbank by Italian lender UNICREDIT.
Still, some European self -fluorescence is too much. Larry Fink, the highest executive officer of Black Rock, a major asset management in the United States, said that the pessimism was “big and deeper.”
But that may be a morning call to call the continent’s needs -if you can learn from US innovation and entrepreneurship. Furthermore, the market may have underestimated the risks of inflation waves and warned Fink. Trump tariffs can be released.
“Probably, it’s time to invest in Europe and focus.”
