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The war in our neighboring country has turned the financial world upside down. As a result, the foreign exchange market developments became today’s dominant issue. The dollar has been strengthening spectacularly, recently reaching a 20-year high, while the euro has hit an all-time low. During MCC Budapest Lectures on "Will the war kill the euro?", the participants found out which currencies could be affected by a possible currency crisis and how the future of the eurozone could develop. In addition, an interesting discourse was held on the arguments for and against leaving the euro area. It was the opening event of MCC Budapest Summit ont he Economic Consequences of the War, which was a two-day long international conference.
The guest lecturer of the evening was Tuomas Malinen, who is a CEO of the Helsinki-based macroeconomic consultancy GnS Economics and an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Helsinki. The discussion was moderated by Dr. Géza Sebestyén, an Associate Professor at the Corvinus University of Budapest and Head of the MCC Economic Policy Workshop. We have to prepare for the worst", said Tuomas Malinen when he was asked what he expects from the period ahead. In his opinion, we are living in unprecedented times, when we are witnessing events on the world markets that nobody expected, as exemplified by the drastic depreciation of the British pound and the Japanese yen. The expert pointed out that it was already foreseeable when the Russia-Ukraine war broke out that the EU would impose sanctions on Russia, and the Russian response would most likely be based around restricting gas supplies. Tuomas says that the best-case scenario for solving the energy crisis has failed with the blowing up of the Nord Stream pipeline, leaving Europe with a less positive situation. The expert stressed that we need to fundamentally change our daily habits in order to come out of the energy crisis with as little damage as possible.
