Disliked{quote} --> The mid term outlook in Europe looks very dark. We had a very bad news this week for the mid term via France. --> As we suspected since Brexit, the UK opened pandoras box in Europe. One of the key dominos to flirt collapsing was free trade and markets via protectionism and contagion on the whole continent. The backward and rather pathetic economic policy from the left in France just pretty much killed the TTIP (Free Trade negotiation with the US) while the very core of the European common market is in play for next year. --> It took...Ignored
On our mid term (autum + early winter - the leg Im impling in previous post) and long term (there is potential for more downside than the map I posted shows) the political uncertainty is super strong: I used to have macro+ECB+risk in my equation for each side of currency but recently Im adding special category of politics as a sub-part of the risk variable.
Next month austrian presidential elections (repeat after the cancelation by constitutional court) - high chance of a super-anti-EU president
Netherlands March 2016 - Wilders and his Party for Freedom approx 35% in the polls.
German Bunderstag elections August 2017 aprox. - Alternative for Deutschland 14 % by polls.
French presidential elections April/May 2017. - Le Pen in lead by polls.
The french-german is the most critical one as the french-german axis is absolutely essential and with it EU starts and ends. Their relationship basically determines if we have war or peace on the continent.
Plus there is the stagnant macro front (=) which also leads to the terrible situation of italian bank loans among other things) and ECB with almost no ammo left. Not good situation.
This may be the situation we have as traders but looking beyond that....
Socially the worst part to me seems that most of the european population does not really understand what is going on in the system (= there may be some complex social/political processes of dezintegration and that may not be reversable once it is in certain stage) and have no clue where it can lead as most of the european public has been "brainwashed" by this consumer capitalism while taking all the freedoms (no matter if EU freedoms of movement/capital etc., or just basic national freedoms) and the general post-soviet status quo as granted for the rest of the history (=mostly young people who have no clue what the anti-democratic anti-humanistic powers can do as they r considered part of the history). Not coincidentally we all could read the book The End of History and The Last Man by Fukuyama. Well see what happens but those nightwalking may be very badly suprised once woken up as the next chapter of the history may be in the writting. Im pretty sure Russia is gonna grab the pen if it gets the opportunity.
P.S.: Completely different story is to ask how we got into this situation =) state of the EU economy (problems of the euro, austerity etc.), state of the european integration (complete incompetency to deal with migration, effeciancy of the eu decision processes etc.) and lack of european political elites.
P.S.: Personal story. One has really strange feeling when in his small hometown on the border between Czech republic and Austria sees a human-made chain of several hunders people making human-border and screaming "no refugees, no eu, fu*k merkel" while AUSTRIAN cars going by were met with "this is the last time you go through". Yes, of course, everywhere we find some dick*heads - mostly in our small hometowns and everyone is lucky we dont have to live there. But this is pretty indicative of the social clima we are in. Im 25 so I do not remember the iron curtain but I know it stood where the people stood. People who in those times wanted the freedom.