It will be a heart-pounding year for the most important stock exchanges in the European Union and the Eurozone. The reason was pointed out in no uncertain terms by the Financial Times on 2 January, when it took its cue from the risk of an advance by populist parties in Europe, in conjunction with a series of eight elections scheduled for 2015 (Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece , Poland, Portugal, Spain and Great Britain). It will be a year in which politics, understood as recourse to citizens' votes, will make its consequences felt on the markets and on the euro in a significant way. Many are betting that we will see a roller coaster on the European Stock Exchanges, and some even go so far as to hypothesize a return of speculation by American hedge funds even on the stability of the euro. The three most significant elections of the eight on the bill in 2015 are the Greek, British and Spanish elections, all while Angela Merkel's Germany announced a balanced budget a year early, giving yet another sign of stability against the trend.
GREECE, CE N'EST QU'UN DEBUT
We will start with Greece on January 25th where the advance of the radical left of Syriza, given a lead of 3 percentage points in the polls, could pave the way for a tug of war between international creditors (the troika) and the new Greek executive on the story of debt restructuring and the easing of austerity policies. It is possible that Syriza wins the elections but without obtaining an absolute majority and is therefore forced to open up to pro-European parties to form a coalition. An evolving scenario which in any case signals uncertain times for the whole of 2015 under the Parthenon, precisely in the year in which the country should exit the EU aid plan (the IMF plan will end in the second quarter of 2016).
GREAT?BRITAIN?THINKS AGAIN
The British vote on May 7 under Big Ben in London, the homeland of all modern democracies, is one of the most important since the days of Winston Churchill and Co. At stake, according to analysts, is even the permanence of the Kingdom in European Union and therefore of the City, the largest financial center on the Old Continent. Let's talk about Brexit, Great Britain's exit from Brussels. And it is not worth remembering that General de Gaulle had always said that it would have been better to leave the British outside the door of the European Union.
Polls show Ed Miliband's Labor ahead of Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservatives. But the most surprising question is that the third contender in the game is no longer the old and sleepy Liberal Democratic Party but Nigel Farage's UKIP, which makes the exit from the EU its programmatic proposal. A hypothesis so evident to the point that Cameron has promised in case of victory in the vote to hold a referendum in 2017 on London's permanence in the European Union with a very uncertain outcome.
THE SPAIN OF PABLO IGLESIAS
It sounds like the name of a new pop music singer but the song that Pablo Iglesias sings, leader of Podemos, has found many Spaniards ready to listen to it. A persuasive music that speaks of the end of austerity and of sending home the outgoing prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, a Christian Democrat who has restarted the economy with a bitter medicine made up of tears and blood. The Spanish one is in chronological order the third most important European vote of 2015 – it will be held between October and November – and also in this case the stock exchanges will be watching and savers anxious about their investments. Until a few months ago, Rajoiy's confirmation seemed obvious but now everything has come back into question after the publication of the latest polls that even give Podemos the first place.
The situation, therefore, has not stabilized in Madrid. Spain is emerging from the crisis quickly and well, it has started to grow again, unemployment is falling but if the vote were to reward a party with no government experience then it would be a "roller coaster" in Madrid as well.
