Dimon Says Euro Zone May Not Survive If Concerns Are Ignored

The euro region could break up if political leaders don’t get to grips with the discontent that’s spurring support for populist leaders across the continent, JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said.
Dimon said he had hoped European Union leaders would examine what caused the U.K. to vote to leave and then make changes. That hasn’t happened, and if nationalist politicians including France’s Marine Le Pen rise to power in elections across the region ‘the euro zone may not survive,’ Dimon, 60, said in a Bloomberg Television interview with John Micklethwait.
‘What went wrong is going wrong for everybody, not just going wrong for Britain, but in some ways it looks like they’re kind of doubling down,’ Dimon said in the interview Wednesday at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Unless leaders address underlying concerns, ‘you’re going to have the same political things about immigration, the laws of the country, how much power goes to Brussels.’
Dimon’s remarks on Europe were unusually pessimistic, coming in a wide-ranging interview in which he also criticized regulations that he said stunt economic growth. But he reiterated optimism for President-elect Donald Trump. Minutes later, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein also expressed concern about Europe, telling CNBC that leaders are facing a backlash in the midst of a long, complicated process to create an economic bloc.

This post was published at bloomberg