Deutsche Bank’s global head of FX strategy compares the 14-year-old eurozone to an angst-ridden teen who needs a positive role model ‘free of sin’ like Jesus to solve its economic woes.
Deutsche Bank‘s global head of FX strategy, Bilal Hafeez, recently gave a speech at the annual Deutsche Bank Mittelstand (small and medium-sized enterprises) FX conference in Hamburg, Germany.
The bank’s research department transcribed Hafeez’s speech and sent it out to clients in a note.
The speech focuses on the euro area’s economic woes and the need for the currency bloc to move forward with further integration in order to be economically successful.
Excerpt:
Europe’s Saviour
Who else has entered the terrible teens? The Euro-Area! It was born in 1999, and so is currently fourteen years old. It has all the hallmarks of teenage angst. It is ridden with internal conflicts, it is groping around for structure, and it is suspicious of authority. So who can be a positive role model for the Euro-Area? Well it cannot be the “fathers”: Germany or France. It has to be an external figure that all Europeans respect, and whose motives and character are beyond dispute. That rules out anyone living as even the most competent person will make missteps or have something from their past dredged up to undermine them. That leaves us with historical figures whose lives have been laid bare by history. I can only think of one figure that is respected by most Europeans and has never sinned, Jesus!
