Economics

SocGen Chairman Warns Economic Risks Are Building in Europe

Central Banks may need to take action to avoid recession
ECB may need to cut rates before Lagarde begins: Bini Smaghi

Bini Smaghi discusses trade tensions, uncertainty surrounding Brexit and their impact on the euro-region economy.Source: Bloomberg

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By Angeline Benoit, Caroline Connan, and Ania Nussbaum

July 6, 2019 at 8:16 AM UTC

Updated on

July 6, 2019 at 2:12 PM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

Trade tensions and uncertainty surrounding Brexit are raising economic risks for the euro region that may require central bank action, according to Societe Generale SA Chairman Lorenzo Bini Smaghi.

“At some point the slowdown may reach bottom, and we want to have the monetary instruments in place to avoid that this becomes a recession,” he said in a Bloomberg News TV interview on Saturday at an economics conference in Aix-en-Provence, southern France. “We have all the factors of uncertainty.”