MEP Sharon Bowles warns both Europe and euro could be gone in six months
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MEP Sharon Bowles has warned members of the mortgage industry that in six months time there could be no Europe or euro.
The Liberal Democrat MEP, who is also chair of the European Parliament’s powerful Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, made the shock comments at Mortgage Strategy’s Mortgage Masters conference at the Stoke Park hotel in Buckinghamshire.
Bowles had travelled to the event directly from Brussels to inform the great and the good of the industry about the current state of the European Mortgage Directive, from the controversial 14-day cooling off period to the impact it could potentially have on first-time buyers and the buy-to-let market.
But after her main speech was concluded she was asked a number of questions from the audience about the future of Europe.
The event’s host, Kevin Duffy, managing director of UK brokerage Mortgage Force, asked her whether, with the continued instability in Europe, in six months time we would see a two speed Europe.
To this Bowles responded: “I don’t know whether we will have an EU.” When Duffy attempted to clarify whether she meant the EU or euro, she responded “I don’t think we’ll have either”.
She went on to say while parliament and commission were currently holding the line well when it came to protecting the single market, she contiued to state that she was pessimistic about the future of the euro, and in her opinion it was “game over”.
She says: “The fact is we’re not going to have this growth which means we’re probably going to have an asset price crash, which definitely means houses.
“This is probably a good thing for the younger generation because they’re priced out of everything and they’ll stay priced out if the government pays our way out of it.
“So there is a silver lining somewhere down the track if we do have this crash but of course having the EU there to enable the bigger market so we can stay competitive on the global arena will be very important.”
But she adds: “As I see it if we do lose the Euro the big prize is to try and fight against the forces of protectionism, the social unrest that we’re going to have because of the cuts that are going to be inevitable and you know it really is quite a bleak prognosis.
“If you read quite a lot of the reports from various economists and it’s no wonder that people are saying angry things like we thought we had put war behind us and things like that.”
Her comments mirror that of the governor of the Bank of England Mervyn King who has warned that the eurozone crisis was the biggest threat to the UK banking system.
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Readers' comments (2)
MC | 2 Dec 2011 1:40 pm
Six months? Be lucky if it sees New Year in at this rate.
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Paul 2 | 2 Dec 2011 2:24 pm
What steps then are being taken to ensure that all in Brussels will still get their pensions?
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