© REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

We are conducting this interview on a sad day, January the 31^st. The United Kingdom is departing the European Union tonight. With the EU’s second largest economy gone, where does this leave the EU? The immediate reaction of the EU has been to circle the wagons and to maintain and re-emphasize unity—in the face of the first such event, the first time a country has left the EU, and obviously concerned about potentially hostile relations in a hostile world. So, in the first place the EU has strengthened its unity. The second point is, that Britain’s departure hasn’t made any of the obvious problems within the EU any easier, except that it’s removed one moderately problematic member—but until the Brexit vote happened, not an enormously problematic member, because in some of the most difficult issues the EU faced, Britain wasn’t involved: the eurocrisis, where the UK was neither helpful nor a hindrance. It’s obviously not really involved, or hasn’t been at least since the early 2000s, in relations between the old members and the new members of Central and Eastern Europe or in the relations with Russia. It doesn’t actually even have very much to do with relations with America. But that might change.

So, I don’t think Britain’s departure solves any problems for the EU. Third, there’s a diminution in the perceived international weight of the EU. Because of its history and location, Britain has exceptionally close—exceptional by the standards of other members—relationships with countries around the world. You know, people know Britain pretty well, in Asia, the Americas. There are other member countries with important relations like Spain with Latin America, but I think Britain was exceptional. So, people feel this is an EU they know less well. Germany is less well-known, for example. And they also feel that, I think, if Britain is leaving, something is wrong with the EU. There is a sort of weakening of credibility, which will have to be re-established, and the sense, well, maybe there will be more break-ups.

And finally, I think that Britain’s departure will probably mean a sort of change in the policy culture of the EU itself. I would expect it to become more southern—it must do so—less economically liberal, more continental. And I would expect therefore cumulatively over time the orientation of the EU and the policy choices of the EU will be somewhat different than they would have been if Britain had remained a member. Remember that the single market, as we know it, wouldn’t have happened. It would have been quite different, it’s quite a big deal. I expect the EU to be somewhat more inward-looking, somewhat more defensive, somewhat more regulation-minded.

The ambitions of the European Commission led by Ursula von der Leyen, of course, go a completely different way. Absolutely. And we will have to see if she succeeds.

Von der Leyen promised a “geopolitical commission,” most likely using geo-economic tools. If you look into the EU’s toolbox, is there much to look at? I think the problem the EU has is that it has lost its big alliances, particularly with the United States. The EU is not and—whatever they pretend—will not in the near future be a security player of big weight. That would require a policy revolution, above all in Germany. And we’re not seeing much sign of that at the moment. So, it’s geo-economics. There are two big areas where in theory the EU could play big role. The first is trade. Globalization is a big interest of the EU. It is a very open economy. Actually, it is the most open of the large economies. If you regard the EU as a whole, it’s substantially more open than China or let alone the US. And the other one is climate.

The problem in both cases is that though the EU is big, it’s not big enough on its own to shift the world. And it’s not clear who its allies are going to be. The United States obviously has become highly unilateralist and protectionist. So, that makes a globalization program very difficult. Indeed, the effort is going to be devoted clearly just to managing the bilateral relations with the US. And vis-à-vis China, it is very difficult to know how to make progress with China. It’s a very complicated story. The EU has a lot of interests in common with the US, but the US is not coordinating with it or not very much. Creating a critical mass of willing countries that will make a really big difference to the progress on the trade front will not be impossible, but it will be very, very difficult.

And on climate it’s basically the same story. You’ve got the US out of the picture, which is a big loss, and again China is in a very different place in terms of its development, its ambitions. It may be possible to construct some sort of climate alliance with China, but it’s going to be a tremendously big problem. The EU is in a very different stage of development with very different priorities from China, which is still a very fast-growing, emerging economy. So I think in those big areas, the EU can do interesting things and important things. I don’t underestimate them, but shifting the global dial is going to be very, very difficult.

Do you think the rapid worsening of transatlantic relations can be reversed after President Donald Trump? It obviously will depend, first, on what happens in the presidential elections and the congressional elections later this year. Speaking now, it looks rather likely to me that Mr. Trump will be re-elected. But I think, there’s a second question, which is how much difference it would make if a Democrat won. It would depend rather on who the Democrat was, but I think, the general balance of opinion in the US has shifted in a more inward-looking direction, a more protectionist direction, a more anti-Chinese direction. I think a Democrat will be much friendlier to the Europeans; it would make it much easier to have good international relations, but I think, it will be very difficult to get a Democratic administration to focus on any huge, ambitious global endeavor. I mean, the world in which the Europeans and the Clinton administration completed the Uruguay Round for example, 26 years ago, seems unimaginably distant.

Donald Trump is on tape saying the EU was constructed to “screw up” the United States… And he’s not entirely wrong. This was very clearly not the German view in the 1950s and 1960s, but it was a French view. One of the raisons d’être of the EU and more recently the euro was to challenge American power. The French have a pretty consistent view going back to Charles de Gaulle. They got out of NATO; later they wanted to upgrade the euro as a rival currency. So, the Americans aren’t completely wrong. Nonetheless, the dominant view of the US until the end of the Cold War was that the Europeans were very important allies. There were on the forefront in the global war with Communism. And the stronger Europe was economically and politically, the better. They didn’t take the French threat too seriously for perfectly good reasons.

The end of the Cold War changed everything. The first period, the 1990s , were “the holiday from history.” Everything was fine, the world was perfect. Then you got into the post-9/11 period and you got into a really big split between America and Europe over the Iraq war, and it’s an important split. The Europeans were right, but that doesn’t make the Americans like them better, and there was a split within Europe, because the British went their own way, which was itself, I think, a revealing fact.

But at that point, Europe began to just look less important. It’s no longer the front, because there is no front there anymore. Russia has gone away, that’s what we felt, and we are now interested in the Middle East and the pivot to Asia, which came later. What’s Europe got to do with that? Nothing. It’s a nuisance in the Middle East and as far as Asia is concerned, it’s irrelevant. So, the Americans increasingly became a mixture of hostile and indifferent, more indifferent than hostile, but there was some real hostility.

Then in the post-financial crisis period, there’s been the long period of economic crisis in Europe, at least it was seen as a crisis. I talked to a lot of American policy makers: Was Europe a help? No, it was a nuisance. There was a tremendous worry that Europe would create the next stage of the financial crisis and then, finally, we get to the Trump era. Now, Putin is a bit more of a threat, but he’s not seen as a threat like the Soviet Union by most Americans. Trump likes him, whereas Europe is not seen as central to America’s concerns and is seen—on the right—as moralistic and unhelpful.

There are still some Americans in the center-left who admire Europe, admire Europe’s civic culture, they admire the social democratic systems and values. Probably, if you talked to Elizabeth Warren, she would say actually Europe is the way we should do things. I don’t underestimate that, but I think basically Europe simply doesn’t play the same role in America’s interests. And then you get this very Trumpian, protectionist view: Europe is running a big trade surplus with us, so it’s hostile. Europe depends on our defense umbrella and it’s not paying enough for it, so we’re providing them with a valuable thing for free, so they’re freeloaders and then they moralize at us all the time and tell us how bad we are.

So I think for Trump, given his protectionist views on climate change, his very transactional view of international relations, Europe is really, really irritating. And then it’s stuffed full of liberal democracies and he doesn’t much like liberal democracies. So, for him to be lectured by the German chancellor about how to behave as a decent democrat is, I think, pretty well unbearable. And the fact that I agree with Angela Merkel doesn’t make it any better.

Is there any chance of the EU achieving the French aim of strategic autonomy? Well, it would be possible for Europe to achieve a fair degree of strategic autonomy. It is very big, 450 million people. It is still the second largest economy after the US, depending on how you measure it. It has clear economic weaknesses, it is slow-growing, very slow-growing, it is aging, it is not doing as well in the frontier technologies with America and China, but still it is a big power.

But the real question is whether it can develop a collective will and purpose to achieve that. Does it really want strategic autonomy? Does it want to exert power in the world with its economic wealth and weight? There two pretty big obstacles to doing this. One is Germany. What is it that Germany wants? My strong impression is that Germany remains emotionally very committed to not being a great power, which is the post-war situation. Second, Europe remains a mosaic of very different countries and cultures with very different attitudes. Can you create a genuine, coherent whole out of it? Otherwise, if you cannot do it, you need much more political integration. Much more!

So, I do not think it is likely to be. The French ambition, which is basically the French idea, when they say, “Europe must have strategic autonomy,” they mean, “You must do exactly what France wants and put everything behind France.” Well, that is not how it is going to work. I have to say, in these matters France is actually closer to Britain than it is to Germany and Germany is a very different, for very obvious reasons.

Would a US-China confrontation reverse the trend of deteriorating transatlantic relations? This is a really important question. Trump is very peculiar in that he is so unilateralist and so indifferent to a lot of alliances. Another president may also be concerned with balancing China while having very substantial interests and views in common with Europe. I have talked to German businesses in China: they have very similar concerns to those of the Americans.

So in economics it is perfectly possible to imagine an alliance of Europe and America, and Japan as well, confronting China. But of course in a geopolitical and geostrategic confrontation with China, Europe is not going to be relevant. It does not have relevant forces outside economics, to bring to bear in this. Europe is no longer a strategic front, which is a very good thing. Who wants to be the strategic front? It was not much fun when the Soviet army were here [in Berlin].

By the way, there is another possibility, which is relevant to this: Europe has the potential to extend its economic influence by forging very close relationships with what used to be the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and is now minus America. At some point I think the US will go back in. So, an alliance of liberal-market democracies on the economic side is conceivable and China could break that. That could yet be an important strategic opportunity.

So, if the Americans are moderately intelligent, you could imagine a world, five to ten years from now, in which you have China and probably Russia on the one side and a Western-led alliance of liberal democracies on the other. And Europe would be an important part of that. That would involve a pretty big shift in American thinking at the moment, but I could imagine that happening.

The interview was conducted by Henning Hoff. Assistance: John-William Boer and David Schmitt. Martin Wolf was speaking at the “After Populism” conference organized by the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP).

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© picture alliance/ROPI

What went wrong? After months of discussions over the pros and cons of a constitutional change to make Italy’s political process more efficient – a change that had the business world’s seal of approval – voters said no. A heated national debate ended in a resounding defeat for Prime Minister Matteo Renzi on December 4 of last year, and three days later he was forced to resign. Once again, Italy was left with a new government  – the 66th since the end of World War II. But the failed proposal and the reasons it fell apart have been swiftly swept under the rug.

In fact, complete silence has settled over the country. Renzi’s aborted reform plans are no longer discussed at all, as though the referendum never even happened. The parties that once supported the reform plan have returned to their traditional infighting, and the word “reform” has been stricken from the political vocabulary. In the meantime, lawmakers have been consumed by a new voting law and potential dates for a new election.

The clear 59.1 percent majority against Renzi’s reform plans may have been influenced by the Brexit vote and the US election, but there was also a uniquely Italian dynamic at play: Renzi had lost sight of growing social inequality and failed to understand the degree to which young Italians reject his policies, especially those who had suffered the most under the ongoing financial crisis. For them, it wasn’t a matter of constitutional reform – their vote was meant as a wake-up call for Renzi.

Too Big to Fail

Italy has lost its chance at a new beginning and rejected a constitutional reform that was fundamental to the health of the economy.

The country is “too big to fail” – too large and important as the third-largest economy in the eurozone and ninth-largest industrial state in the world to be allowed to collapse. While Greece is responsible for two percent of the economic capacity of the eurozone, Italy contributes 16 percent. The reform aimed to make administrative structures more flexible, legislative processes faster, and the political world more stable; it would have made Italy’s economy more competitive on the international stage.

Instead, the economy is stagnating, the banking sector is in crisis and public debt is staggering. Yet the outbreak of the disease began long before Renzi entered office in February 2014; the country’s recent problems merely represent its recurring symptoms. In reality, Italy has been suffering from weak growth, antiquated structures, and pernicious corruption for a long time.

Italy’s recession lasted three years after the start of the financial crisis in 2008 and had disastrous consequences. GDP has plummeted by eight percent, per capita income has fallen ten percent since 2007, and productivity is a quarter of pre-crisis levels. At the same time, debt has increased and the unemployment rate has fallen only marginally. Youth unemployment was still 40 percent as of December.

The crisis decimated the once-strong middle class, and growth has stagnated. Renzi does not deserve the blame for these developments, but he did not manage to improve the situation either. Italy simply has not managed the transition into the modern era.

In fact, the economy has lacked dynamism for some thirty years now. Real growth sank from 2 percent in the 1980s to 1.5 percent in the 1990s and 0.6 percent in the first decade of the 21st century. The largest economic contraction came in 2012. Now, deflation and weak domestic demand continue to stifle growth even further.

It’s a vicious circle: Sinking productivity and competitiveness demand higher public debt, which increased to €2.21 trillion in 2016. The EU Commission has demanded sustainable budget consolidation and doubts Italy’s willingness to cut expenses. And it’s no wonder the Commission is worried – if Italy cannot get its debt under control, the existence of the euro itself is under threat.

The emotionally-charged word “flexibility” has dominated the headlines for months now. In 2016 the EU Commission granted Rome a few exceptions as a one-time measure. In its 2017 budget, Italy designated certain expenses – including the costs of the continuing refugee crisis and the 2016 earthquake – as special expenditures and raised its deficit repeatedly. A culture war broke out between Europe’s North and South. Rome blamed austerity policies for limiting its growth while Berlin and Brussels criticized Italy’s unwillingness to cut expenses and the government’s ad hoc approach to economic policy.

Too Many Banks, Too Little Efficiency

The problems with Italy’s ailing banks are especially troubling. It is a sector that has avoided modernization for years; Renzi summed it up when he said, “There are too many banks.” Too many banks, too many branches, too little efficiency – for every million inhabitants, there are 502 bank branches, well above the European average. The problem stems from Italian mentality. Particularly in smaller villages and rural areas, businesses rely on personal contact, but this can have negative consequences. When the credit unions were saved in 2015, small savers lost their money because they trusted their personal advisers without reading the fine print on their accounts.

There are many reasons why the banks find themselves in this state – the macroeconomic environment currently affecting all European banks, the negative interest rate limiting profitability, the 2016 earthquake – but there’s one problem unique to Italy: bad loans. In total, the banks have amassed a record €360 billion of them.

Italian bank supervisors blame the recession for exacerbating the situation. It has become difficult for many companies to pay back their loans, according to Ignazio Visco, governor of the Banca d’Italia, and banks have had to take necessary precautions to ward off further disaster. But the process of restoring the banks’ health has taken too long. Carmelo Barbagallo, head of the Banca d’Italia’s directorate general for financial supervision and regulation, says the number of bad loans is gradually sinking, but the IMF and the European Banking Authority have observed Italy’s attempt to work through its mountain of bad debt with growing concern.

The institution with perhaps the greatest problems is Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena. Founded in 1472, it lost roughly 60 percent of its value on the Milan stock market in 2016. The Siena institution was the worst-performing in Europe in the ECB’s stress test and at €24.2 billion has the highest amount of non-performing loans on its books.

Key investors, such as the sovereign wealth fund of Qatar, have withdrawn their funds, and shortly after Renzi’s resignation the final taboo was broken: the state stepped in to rescue the bank. According to EU rules established in the beginning of 2016, this should no longer be possible. However, Rome invoked exception clauses and pointed at the bank’s systemic role. For weeks now, the rescue package of €20 billion has been ready and waiting in a drawer at the ministry of economy and finance. In retrospect, it is clear that Renzi spent far too long passively observing the disaster unfold. He sat on the sidelines until Monte dei Paschi was nearly insolvent in order to escape the anger of the small investors (and voters) who would be forced to shoulder the bailout.

Reaching Global Markets

Today, banks are working to modernize themselves – but as in other industries, that can mean the elimination of jobs. And different industries have experienced vastly different rates of success when entering the global market. Some, like companies that deliver cars for the automotive industry, have been overwhelmingly successful in carving out niches for themselves; others have had more difficulty, due to insufficient innovation, development, strategy, or simply foreign language capability. “Businesses need to be able to rely on a modern institutional order, otherwise investments won’t come in,” says Boccia. With the referendum, they would have had it.

In addition to a long tradition of clientelism, Italy has been plagued by corruption and mismanagement, tax dodging, and a significant shadow economy. Financial regulators are taking their work seriously; the new Italian National Anti-Corruption Authority (Autorità Nazionale AntiCorruzione, or ANAC) has so far been successful – and yet there are daily media reports of new cases of corruption or abuse of office. The “Tangentopoli” bribery scandal uncovered extensive corruption in Italy’s highest offices 25 years ago, yet today, according to a poll conducted by the institute Demos & Pi, 86 percent of Italians believe corruption to be as ubiquitous in politics now as it was then, especially when it comes to procurement.

And beyond corruption, the country’s bloated bureaucracy and outdated justice system practically demand that businesses flout the rules. The Renzi government attempted to reduce the role of public administration by reorganizing the provinces, but the task proved Sisyphean in a country that praises the clever hustler who clocks in every morning and then goes to take care of other business outside the office. Resistance against any sort of change to increase efficiency is substantial.
Business requires faster reform of the justice system, both in civil and criminal law. At the moment, a judgment is only valid after three instances and often takes over a year to reach. According to the EU Commission, since 2014 an average of 500 days pass between the beginning of a civil trial and a decision. In criminal cases, the statute of limitations often runs out before a judgment is handed down.

Scandal-prone former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was one of the greatest beneficiaries of this system, escaping countless times from tax evasion, corruption, perjury, and abuse of office charges. He was only once convicted, and even then escaped with nothing more than house arrest and community service on account of his age. Faster legal proceedings would also be a draw for foreign investors. A new law extending the statute of limitations, however, is stuck in parliament – and the ongoing electoral campaign prevents any serious legislative work.

Other numbers speak for themselves. Tax evasion currently amounts to €109 billion per year, and the shadow economy is estimated to comprise around 12 percent of business. To change that will be a Herculean challenge for any government. Twenty years of Berlusconi did little to strengthen civic cooperation or confidence in state institutions. As Machiavelli wrote in The Prince in 1513, “For the innovator has for enemies all those who derived advantages from the old order of things, whilst those who expect to be benefited by the new institutions will be but lukewarm defenders.”

“Made in Italy”

Not everything is going wrong in Italy. Minister of Economic Development Carlo Calenda pointed out, “We are in fifth place globally in terms of trade surplus, and set an export record of €414 billion in 2015. Many of our businesses are integrated into the global supply chain.” When it comes to structure and competitiveness, the northern parts of the country are not so different from Germany’s most successful states, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg.

“Made in Italy” is a sure-fire success – the luxury sector is booming, and not only major fashion brands, but also the leather, design, food, and wine industries are doing well. Even in metalworking and electronics there are countless small and medium-sized enterprises that are fast becoming global leaders. The shift of Italian industry over the past decade into machine construction, robotics, and pharmaceuticals has strengthened connection to Germany, the country’s most important trading partner. German companies have 2950 branches in Italy today.

Meanwhile, Calenda has been undeterred in his emphasis on Industry 4.0, and industrial leaders like Alberto Bombassei from Brembo, a manufacturer of brakes systems, consider him “the right man in the right position.” Italy will make further gains as business and consumer confidence grow.
Renzi was accused by his opponents of pursuing political rather than structural goals, but his reform report card – with the exception of the referendum – isn’t bad at all, especially his modernization of the labor market in the face of massive opposition. This reform is not yet finished, though; bankruptcy reform and a competition law are still pending in parliament.

Italy can count among its virtues creativity, a knack for innovation, and quick problem-solving abilities. The Italians are adaptable and flexible in crises, and they possess a great deal of individuality and loyalty to their local region, rather than to the state. Their private saving rates are high compared to the European average. These are all factors that could help Italy manage a new beginning. The country has gotten by so far, though it is losing time. Italy seems to be experiencing the bumblebee paradox: According to the laws of aerodynamics, a bumblebee should be too heavy and its wings too small to fly – nevertheless, the beating of its wings produces a large vortex that generates enough lift to keep the insect afloat.

Two possibilities still frighten investors. The first is a further advance of Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement. The euroskeptic party is nipping at the heels of the governing Partito Democratico (PD) in the polls. In 2016 local elections they took over city halls in Rome and Turin. But their victories are costing them, especially in the capital: the politically inexperienced and scandal-plagued mayor Virginia Raggi appears to be completely overwhelmed.

And then there’s the specter of an “Italexit”, or Italian exit from the eurozone. The American Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz set the tone of the international discussion: “Italians are starting to realize that Italy doesn’t work in the euro.” And former Chief Economist of Deutsche Bank Thomas Mayer agrees. “Should Renzi lose on December 4, Italy may set a course for an exit from the currency union,” Mayer predicted.

That is not, however, the picture so far in 2017. Economic numbers are slowly beginning to improve, and Renzi’s temporary successor, Paolo Gentiloni, is concentrating on fighting poverty and creating social solidarity. As its first act in office, the government issued a decree to implement school reform and marriage equality, and negotiated an aid packet for southern Italy. Another earthquake in central Italy early this year, however, put the government back in crisis management mode.

Whether Grillo and his party manage to pull off an upset, or whether Renzi returns to implement further reforms, one thing is evident: the era of clear majorities is over. There will be long coalition negotiations, as no political party is currently capable of governing alone. Italy is suffering from a case of “vote-itis,” says Giuseppe Vita, president of Unicredit bank and chairman of the supervisory board of Axel Springer – all the more reason for electoral reform.

Still, the powers of change are at work. In Vita’s words, “The light at the end of the tunnel is daylight, not an oncoming train.”

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Contrary to doomsday scenarios, the Chinese leadership appears well-equipped to manage lower growth. But built-in contradictions create the risk of economic stagnation.

© REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

While the European Union struggles with its migration crisis, and the United States might elect a protectionist presidential candidate, China seems set on more business as usual. In March, Prime Minister Li Keqiang confirmed to the annual National People’s Congress that the average growth rate for the five-year period through 2020 will be targeted above 6.5 percent.

Business as usual? On the one hand, the figure is not a surprise. In November, President Xi Jinping said that this growth target in the 13th Five-Year Plan would be the minimum needed to meet the Communist Party of China’s goal of doubling 2010 GDP and per capita income by 2020. …

Read more in the Berlin Policy Journal App – May/June 2016 issue.

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©REUTERS/Raheb Homavandi/TIMA

There are two points to this story. The first is that Iran has changed significantly since the dismal days of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Then, a European visitor to a provincial town like Ardebil – particularly a Persian-speaker like myself – would not have been approached by a local entrepreneur. He would have been shadowed by the plainclothes security forces and shunned by ordinary people; business would have been the last thing on his mind. That this is no longer the case is down to the 2013 election of President Hassan Rouhani and his policies of economic stability and foreign détente. The respect that Rouhani, a tough-minded moderate, commands both inside and outside the country has lessened fears of war and domestic political meltdown, but Iran’s relative serenity has also heightened expectations. Iranians are not content with a diminution of tensions. They want work and prosperity.

This is where the second point comes in. Iranians’ fond belief that Rouhani would usher in a flood of investment has been disabused. Even the recent nuclear deal that Iran and the world powers signed in July in Vienna was a damp squib; red-faced portfolio managers who had predicted a 15 percent surge in stock values on the news had to explain to their investors why the main index of the Tehran stock exchange dropped 5 percent. There is huge Western interest in Iran as an investment opportunity – hardly a surprise, given Iran’s massive hydrocarbon resources, solid infrastructure, and young, educated, upwardly mobile population – but for all the myriad foreign delegations trooping into Tehran these days, sizing up opportunities and testing markets, Iran is still waiting.

A Basket Case

The economy that Rouhani inherited in 2013 was a basket case. Thanks to sanctions, oil revenues had collapsed the previous year and the rial had halved in value; the economy contracted 6.8 percent, and inflation soared toward its mid-2013 peak of 42 percent. Unable to import parts or machinery, factories closed and unemployment rose to an estimated five million. Corruption and populist largesse (billions of dollars were being handed out to compensate families for reductions in energy subsidies) did the rest. The country was close to exploding.

Since then Rouhani has steadied things through fiscal discipline and a diplomatic dividend that was reaped under the interim nuclear agreement of November 2013, which provided for limited sanctions relief and committed the global powers to refraining from additional sanctions. The government’s economic managers and private companies were now able to make plans with the knowledge that outside pressure on the economy would not get worse.

The rial duly stabilized, inflation came down to 14.5 percent in the first quarter of 2015, and growth reached 3.8 percent in the second half of last year. But the economy remained stuck in second gear, with oil exports down from 2.8 million barrels per day (in July 2011) to less than half that amount, and earnings further hit by the drop in oil prices. …

Read the complete article in the Berlin Policy Journal App – November/December 2015 issue.

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