2017/02/07 - Political Anticipation - A LEAP Press review

Central Banks - End of cordial agreements
A war is expected in 2017 between supranational financial regulators, starting with the BIS (Bank for International Settlements), and the central banks. The full exit of the United States from these bodies in 2017, US which will no longer obey to anything else than national regulatory policies, will automatically trigger a return, particularly within the euro and dollar zones as long as the two are linked. We anticipate a complete disruption of the BIS to which nobody will want to obey anymore. By percolation, the ECB will also find it increasingly difficult to control its troops...
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Time to sell the dollar on ‘erratic’ Trump policies, J.P. Morgan says
The dollar enjoyed a strong run after Election Day, but the Trump administration has turned into a headwind for the buck and more troubles are ahead, strategists at J.P. Morgan warn. In a note out late Friday, the bank’s foreign exchange strategy team led by Paul Meggyesi said it had started to sell the dollar against the yen USDJPY, -0.27% and Swiss franc USDCHF, +0.1007% following comments from Trump and his trade advisor that the U.S. currency has gotten too strong... (Market Watch)

EU founders speak of possible ‘multispeed’ future after Brexit
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and leaders of other founding states of the European Union spoke on Friday of some countries moving ahead faster than others with further integration. After a summit in Malta at which all national leaders discussed plans for a formal declaration in March on the future of the bloc following Britain’s departure, Merkel and others offered endorsements of a so-called “multispeed Europe”, which some governments fear could damage EU unity in the wake of Brexit... (Reuters)

Meet the Man Who Will Challenge Merkel
With the surprise announcement that Martin Schulz, until recently the head of the European Parliament, will be the Social Democrats' chancellor candidate this fall, the German political landscape has undergone a tectonic shift. Now Chancellor Angela Merkel must prepare for a real fight. When SPIEGEL published a profile of Martin Schulz four years ago, Chancellor Angela Merkel took him aside at a European Union summit to tell him that she found it very interesting... (Spiegel)

Telling the whole truth in a post-truth environment
In 2016, surprisingly for many, Oxford Dictionaries chose as their Word of the Year “post-truth”, an adjective defined as: “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”. This runs contrary to the main tenet of the OECD, the “house of best practices” whose works and analysis depend on high quality statistics and solid empirical evidence... (OECD Insight)

Former Catalan president defiant before trial over secession vote
The former Catalan president Artur Mas has insisted he has nothing to apologise for as he prepares to go on trial for his role in the symbolic independence referendum staged in the region three years ago. Mas, who governed Catalonia from 2010 to 2016, will appear at the high court in Barcelona on Monday along with former vice-president Joana Ortega and former education minister Irene Rigau... (The Guardian) 

Romanian protests continue despite government climbdown
A sea of light flooded Bucharest’s Victory square on Sunday (5 February) evening as people flashed their mobiles on the building in front of them: the government headquarters. Earlier that day, the social democrat government had repealed the emergency decree that would have weakened the country’s anti-corruption laws, but people still gathered for the largest anti-government protest in Romania’s post-communist history... (EUObserver)

OPEC to Swell Investor Gains by Turning Market Upside Down
OPEC’s production cuts have already turned oil speculators the most bullish in a decade. As their effect is felt, crude could become even more alluring. The supply curbs are boosting short-term oil prices, pushing some higher than later-dated contracts for the first time in two years... (Bloomberg)

Mikhail Gorbachev: ‘It All Looks as if the World Is Preparing for War’
The world today is overwhelmed with problems. Policymakers seem to be confused and at a loss. But no problem is more urgent today than the militarization of politics and the new arms race. Stopping and reversing this ruinous race must be our top priority... (Time)

EU leaders united as Trump overshadows summit
EU leaders ended a summit in Malta Friday calling for unity, strength and confidence in facing difficult global challenges including the behaviour of the new U.S. administration. The leaders of the 28 Member States were in Malta - which currently holds the EU presidency - to discuss Europe's response to the new Trump administration, as well as migration issues, and the future of Europe after Brexit... (EU Business)

Marine Le Pen vows to put France first at National Front party conference
Marine Le Pen of the National Front (FN) kicked off her campaign to become France's next president with a speech that took many of its cues from the campaign rhetoric of divisive - and successful - populist leaders in Britain and the United States. Le Pen emphasized that under her leadership France's national interests would take precedence above all else - an obvious nod to the platforms on which US President Donald Trump ("America First") and "Leavers" in the UK ("Take back control") rode to success... (Deutsche Welle)

China versus the United States
The real revelation in 2017 will be that China is not heading to adopt the Western model but to implement a separate model which will send a powerful signal of the end of the single-track economic thinking; this will most probably open a very large window of opportunities for other models to emerge (America first, Europe first, China first, India first, Africa first...) with a great potential for liberating both energies for modernisation and ideological conflicts... (Subscribe and read more in the latest GEAB Bulletin)

EU farming policy: The damage done by 20 years of inertia
The EU has long understood that the common agricultural policy (CAP) needs to become fairer and greener. Despite progress in some areas, the data shows that the problems of the 1990s have not gone away. The CAP, which oversees subsidies to farmers in Europe, is a complex bureaucracy favouring large businesses over small farmers, pushing them towards intensive farming practices that harm the environment and lead to unemployment... (EUObserver)

Donald Trump's Wall Street deregulation slammed as 'the last thing we need' by ECB head Mario Draghi
Donald Trump’s roll-back of Wall Street regulation is “very worrisome” and “the last thing we need” the President of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, has warned. Giving evidence to the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on Monday, Mr Draghi was asked about the American President’s assault on the US post-crisis Dodd-Frank legislation, which had curbed the risk-taking of US banks, raised their capital requirements and introduced more safeguards for consumers... (The Independent)