Philip Lane on the Big Problems Facing the Euro-zone Economy
Odd Lots
Bloomberg
4.4 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 7 February 2025
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
There's a pretty widespread recognition that the EU is facing a bunch of economic challenges right now. Growth has been slowing and, as in many places, there's been post-pandemic inflation. But there are other issues too, including a sense that Europe is falling behind when it comes to key technologies like AI and semiconductors. There's also an ongoing energy crisis and the recent threat of tariffs from the US. So how is the European Central Bank evaluating and responding to these cyclical and structural challenges? How do one-off risks affect the direction of monetary policy? We speak with Philip Lane, chief economist at the ECB, about how the central bank is thinking about all these things.
Read More:
Trump’s Naughty List Could Put EU Cars, Machinery in Tariff Crosshairs
ECB Cuts Rates for Fifth Time as Euro-Zone Economy Flatlines
Only http://Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Don't miss the fifth Qatar economic forum powered by Bloomberg this May 20th to 22nd live in Doha. |
| 0:07.3 | With the 2030 end date of national visions in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, and Bahrain on the horizon, |
| 0:13.5 | this year's forum will spotlight how choices made by Gulf heads of states and sovereign wealth funds could shift the global economy further. |
| 0:21.6 | Join us in Doha this May. |
| 0:23.5 | Request an invitation today at Qatar Economic Forum.com. |
| 0:32.5 | Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts Radio News. |
| 0:48.2 | Thank you. Radio Studios. Podcasts Radio News. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Oddlots podcast. |
| 0:52.2 | I'm Tracy Allaway. |
| 0:53.3 | And I'm Joe Wisenthal. |
| 0:54.7 | Joe, did you see last month the European Commission released a competitiveness compass |
| 1:01.0 | with a bunch of recommendations for how to boost productivity in the Eurozone? |
| 1:05.3 | I missed that. However, I know that there have been a number of sort of similar reports and studies. |
| 1:12.0 | Mario Draghi, I think the former ECB chief last year put out this big thing. |
| 1:17.1 | There's certainly been a source of debate, consternation, anxiety, so forth. |
| 1:22.3 | So Mario Draghi's competitiveness report was 400 pages, and the European Commission one was 27 pages. |
| 1:29.7 | And I can't figure out whether or not that makes the commission more productive than Joggi or less. |
| 1:35.2 | Like, their output is physically smaller, but maybe it's more efficient and succinct. |
| 1:40.5 | You're absolutely right. |
| 1:42.0 | This is kind of a tough spot for the Eurozone. So growth has been slowing, while inflation is still kind of sticky. In fact, we had EU inflation for January recently, and it came in slightly hotter than expected. I think it was something like 2.5%. And Europe's been dealing with an energy crisis, plus now the threat of tariffs emanating |
| 2:04.0 | from the Trump administration. And against all of those sort of short-term immediate challenges, |
| 2:10.4 | kind of hovering in the background is the sense that Europe is falling behind in key technologies |
| 2:15.8 | like AI, that it's becoming less competitive, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Bloomberg, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Bloomberg and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.