Germany's risks

The OECD has just updated its economic forecasts for 2022 and 2023, and the prospects it indicates are not good: the effect of the war on economic growth and inflation is more acute than initially expected, with a significant impact on European countries and particularly in Germany.

For her, she forecasts a difficult year 2023 with a drop in GDP of 0.7%, after a sharp slowdown in the second part of 2022, which the most prestigious analysis houses judge even more pronounced.

The OECD thus joins the warnings launched by other international organizations that point to a slowdown or directly to a recession in the country.

Plans for saving and stockpiling fuel reserves only partially cover energy needs in the medium term,

If Germany is forced to ration the supply of gas to the industry, its export capacity will suffer significantly and it is possible that part of its negative effects will be transferred to the EU as a whole.

This fall in production, coupled with inflation that has not subsided and ECB interest rates pointing to the rise, paint a complicated scenario for Chancellor Scholz, at a time when his leadership in the European integration process may be questioned by the latest electoral results in Italy and Sweden, and in front of a Vladimir Putin willing to double the bet in Ukraine in order not to recognize the failure of his warmongering strategy.

The impact of this situation on the eurozone and the EU as a whole is certainly unpredictable.

A recession in Germany may end up affecting countries that, like Spain, are safer from the energy restrictions imposed by Moscow.

Once again, the interdependencies in the eurozone point to the need for cooperation and compensation frameworks in the face of

asymmetric like the one we are experiencing right now.

Seeking national solutions to a continental problem would be a solution that experience has already shown to be ineffective, if not highly counterproductive.

The federal vocation of the EU continues to be put to the test in extreme conditions such as those generated by Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

Despite the neo-sovereignty winds that are blowing in some European countries, only in Europeanist cohesion can solutions be found.