The eurozone has “already collapsed” and is disappearing as the region is on the brink of a banking crisis that will destroy the currency, said Zafer Onat, the chief executive of FinansInvest, a Turkish broker owned by National Bank of Greece SA. (ETE)
“I believe that the European monetary union doesn’t exist anymore,” Onat said in an interview in Istanbul today. “I think it already collapsed but no one has said it yet. Now we are in a deadlock. One of the world’s major reserve currencies will disappear.”
The U.S. is unlikely to come to the eurozone’s rescue and the euro’s departure will benefit the dollar, which will be “very strong,” Onat said. He blamed slow-moving European politics and an inability to act for Europe’s debt crisis.
A meeting of European Union finance ministers is scheduled for tomorrow. Chancellor Angela Merkel and fellow leaders were due to return to Brussels tomorrow for a second summit in four days to hammer out a deal to resolve the debt crisis.
“Europe’s problem all comes from doing nothing,” he said. “They just sat and talked.”
Turkey will be affected by a global downturn, “but it will be minimal compared to other countries” on the back of a strong and well-capitalized banking sector, he said. “The global problem from too much leverage doesn’t exist in Turkey,” Onat said. “Turkey’s average household is not leveraged at all; we are just starting to be.”
