George Soros: EU experiencing an “existential crisis”

In a Tuesday speech, billionaire financier George Soros said the European Union was experiencing an “existential crisis” and described Brexit as “immensely damaging,” the Financial Times reported.

At a meeting organised by think-tank the European Council on Foreign Relations, Soros said the EU is facing three key problems: the refugee crisis, the territorial disintegration exemplified by Brexit and the austerity policy, triggered by the financial crisis, that “hindered Europe’s economic development.”

“The EU is in an existential crisis,” Soros said. “Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong,” he argued. To escape the crisis, the bloc “it needs to reinvent itself.”

According to Soros, tackling the European migration crisis could be the best place to start but added that European countries should bot be forced to accept set quotas of refugees. He quoted the Dublin regulation which decides which nation is responsible for processing a refugee’s asylum status, largely based on which country the individual first enters. They put an “unfair burden” on Italy and other Mediterranean countries, “with disastrous political implications.”

The austerity policies initially seemed to work, Soros pointed out, but the “addiction to austerity” harmed the euro and was now worsening the European crisis. Moreover, Donald Trump’s exit from the nuclear arms deal with Iran as well as the uncertainty over tariffs that threaten transatlantic trade will harm European economies. In particular, Germany’s economy will be affected most.

“We may be heading for another major financial crisis,” he said.

As for Brexit, Soros argued that the negotiations were diverting the EU’s attention from the wider crisis. “Brexit is an immensely damaging process harmful to both sides,” he said.

According to Soros, the EU “needs to transform itself into an association that countries like Britain would want to join, in order to strengthen the political case.”