THE END GAME IS HERE – EUROPE APPROACHING A ‘CATASTROPHE’ – WITH HSBC THE LATEST FINANCIAL INSTITUTION TO WARN ‘MAJOR RECESSION’ IMMINENT IN EUROPE – AS THE MAJORITY OF ITS LEADERS REFUSE TO ‘SNAP OUT OF THEIR WAR PSYCHOSIS’
TOPSHOT - Protesters run in tear gas smoke next to a street fire on the sidelines of a demonstration as part of a national day of strikes and protests, a week after the French government pushed a pensions reform through parliament without a vote, using the article 49.3 of the constitution, in Toulouse, southern France, on March 23, 2023. - French unions on March 23 staged a new day of disruption against the president's pension reform after he defiantly vowed to implement the change, which includes raising the age of retirement from 62 to 64, saying he was prepared to accept unpopularity in the face of sometimes violent protests. (Photo by Charly TRIBALLEAU / AFP)
Europe approaching a ‘catastrophe’ – Hungary
Europe is moving closer to “catastrophe in every sense,” Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto declared on Monday, before extending Budapest’s veto on EU arms transfers to Ukraine.
“Europe is moving closer to a catastrophe – in every sense, unfortunately,” Szijjarto wrote on Facebook before meeting with EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg on Monday. “Now even bigger trouble could be prevented and many thousands of lives could be saved,” he continued, “but to do this one would have to break out of the war psychosis.”
“I have no illusions that this will happen at the meeting of the EU Foreign Ministers in Luxembourg today,” he concluded.
Szijjarto’s prediction played out on Monday. After an address by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba, the bloc’s top diplomats voted to increase their joint weapons fund for Ukraine by an additional €3.5 billion ($3.85 billion).
Known as the ‘European Peace Facility’ (EPF), the fund is a €5.6 billion ($6.08 billion) purse that the bloc uses to finance foreign militaries and reimburse its own members who send arms to foreign conflicts. Before the conflict in Ukraine, the ‘Peace Facility’ had only been used to supply non-lethal equipment to Georgia, Mali, Moldova, Mozambique, and Ukraine, for a total of less than $125 million.
While the EPF’s ceiling will be increased, Szijjarto confirmed on Monday that Hungary will maintain its veto on the latest €500 million ($546 million) tranche of arms from the fund for another month. Budapest is currently blocking the transfer of EU weapons to Ukraine due to Kiev’s blacklisting of Hungarian companies doing business in Russia.
Szijjarto and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban have both repeatedly called for a ceasefire and peace deal in Ukraine, while insisting that anti-Russia sanctions hurt Europe more than they hurt Russia.
In an interview with German tabloid Bild on Tuesday, Orban stated that the idea of a Ukrainian victory on the battlefield is “impossible” and that without an immediate ceasefire, Ukraine will “lose a huge amount of wealth and many lives, and unimaginable destruction will occur.”
“What really matters is what the Americans want to do,” Orban said, explaining that “Ukraine is no longer a sovereign country. They don’t have any money. They have no weapons. They can only fight because we in the West support them.” – RT.COM
Major recession imminent in West – HSBC
The US is projected to enter recession in the fourth quarter of 2023, the British banking giant HSBC said on Tuesday, adding that Western European countries would face a downturn as soon as next year.
According to the midyear outlook issued by HSBC Asset Management, recession cautions are “flashing red” for many economies as stock and bond markets are “out of sync” with fiscal and monetary policies.
While some parts of the economy are still resilient, the balance of risks “points to high recession risk now,” with Europe lagging behind the US but the macro trajectory generally “aligned,” the bank’s global chief strategist Joseph Little said in the report.
“Our central scenario is for recession in western economies, and a difficult, choppy outlook for markets,” Little projected, citing two reasons behind the outlook.
“First, we have the rapid tightening of financial conditions that’s caused a downturn in the credit cycle. Second, markets do not appear to be pricing a particularly pessimistic view of the world,” the strategist added.
The warning came a week after the Bank of England (BoE) moved to lift rates to 5%, the highest level in 15 years, as sticky inflation erodes the British economy. In May, the US Federal Reserve announced another hike of its key interest rate to 5.25%, the highest since 2007. At the same time, the European Central Bank (ECB) raised the Eurozone’s key rate to 3.75% in an attempt to curb raging inflation.
Despite the hawkish tone adopted by Western regulators, HSBC Asset Management expects the US Fed to slash rates before the end of the current year, with the ECB and the BoE following suit next year.
“The recession is not going to be big enough to really purge all inflation pressures out of the system. As a result, this points to a regime of somewhat higher inflation and interest rates over time,” Little concluded. RT.COM
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