Greta Thunberg’s alarm takes the stage at the beginning of the day of the World Economic Forum in Davos, during which the words of Christine Lagarde, president of the ECB, then arrive. For the central bank, inflation is still “too high” and this calls for a single answer: “Go ahead with the rate hikes”.
Lagarde: “Moved forward recession”
Lagarde, speaking at a WEF debate, acknowledges that “more positive news has arrived in recent weeks” in terms of economic activity, news that leads “to shift forward the prospects for a recession in the Eurozone from the third to fourth quarters of the year to fourth quarter 2022 to first quarter 2023. And some countries will experience no recession” while experiencing a “labor market ever so lively, with a very high participation rate, a figure that is homogeneous for all the countries of the area”. Despite this positive news, however, “inflation is still too high: at the ECB we evaluate all the elements that make it up but from any part you look at it remains too high. We remain determined to bring it back to 2% in an orderly manner, we have already raised our rates by 2.50 and will remain on that path until a has fallen,” Lagarde said acknowledging that “we don’t see a de-anchoring of expectations, but we don’t we can risk it.”
Greta on the attack on big oil: “They knew they were causing disasters”
“Stop the opening of new oil, gas and coal sites immediately, and stop blocking the clean energy transition.” Like this Greta Thunberg, the Swedish climate activist who came to the World Economic Forum in Davos together with Vanessa Nakate, Helena Gualinga and Luisa Neubauer, returns to the attack of the big energy groups. Top energy managers “have known for decades that fossil fuels cause catastrophic climate change”, have “misled” politicians and the public, and if they do not change direction they will be “called to their responsibilities with legal action”, reads the open letter from young activists with a petition that nearly 900,000 signatures.
Greta comes to the Forum from Germanywhere he took part in the protests for the Lützerath mine – small village in the Rhineland – and was also stopped and released by the police.
Bonomi: “Robust recovery in the second half”
On the other hand, the president of Confindustria spoke of domestic affairs, Charles Bonomi, on Radio24. “We will have a year characterized by some difficulties for the first six months. In the second half the economy should recover in a robust manner. However, we fear a slowdown in investments, and this is the reason why Confindustria, also during the discussion of the Budget law, he pushed the government a lot to stimulate them,” the leader of the industrialists said in connection from the Economic Forum. “We hope there are tools to support companies aimed at investments. We must be obsessed with growth – he said – and we only do it if we are competitive”.
