3:15 PM
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BILLIONAIRE investor George Soros says financial markets are concerned other countries will follow Germany’s Bundesbank in “guarding” against the end of the euro.
As the European debt crisis stretches into a third year, Bundesbank president Jens Weidmann has begun warning that the European Central Bank’s (ECB’s) emergency liquidity measures “create risks and have to be unwound” after the ECB’s balance sheet ballooned by about 30% since November.
The Bundesbank was campaigning against the “indefinite expansion” of money supply and taking steps to limit the losses if the euro splintered, Mr Soros said in Berlin yesterday.
“This is creating a self-fulfilling prophecy,” he said. “Once the Bundesbank starts guarding against a breakup, everybody will have to do the same. Markets are beginning to reflect this.” If the ECB continued offering support for a few more years, a “break-up of the euro would become possible without a meltdown”, Mr Soros said.
“The omelette could be unscrambled, but it would leave the central banks of the creditor countries with large claims against the central banks of the debtor countries, which would be difficult to collect,” he said.
Mr Soros also said Europe’s so-called fiscal compact “cannot possibly work” because highly indebted nations will either choose not to meet its tougher fiscal rules or, by doing so, trigger collapsing demand. “Either way, debt ratios will rise and the competitiveness gap with Germany will widen,” he said.