The first vice president of the Government and Minister of Economy, Nadia Calviño, fears that Israel’s response to the Hamas terrorist attack will unleash an escalation of violence in Gaza. And that this situation directly affects the world economy at a time of global slowdown.
“We share the desire that there is no escalation of violence in the area. This is the message that is being repeated in the meetings we are having. These attacks add to all the uncertainty that already existed, in a context of economic slowdown“said Calviño during a meeting with the media within the framework of the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank that is being held this week in Marrakech.
The war in the Middle East, indeed, is one of the issues that more questions it has generated during this week in the Moroccan city, and Calviño has confirmed that it is also an issue of great concern among the leaders.
The official responses, and also that of the vice president of the Government, is that “it is still early to assess the economic implications.” But there will be, without a doubt, because the conflict adds a “enormous uncertainty on the geopolitical flank“, and because it will have direct effects on, for example, the price of Petroleum.
The “economic slowdown” to which Calviño refers is precisely what the IMF has confirmed these days. Yesterday the organization published its new world forecasts, a document in which it warned that the economy “limp” and that global forecasts are the poorest “in decades.”