Interview: Eurozone back to sustainable development: Austrian expert

The crisis in Eurozone could be over, and the economy would continue growing in a sustainable path in the coming years with cautious optimism, an Austrian expert told Xinhua.

Helmut Hofer, senior expert in economics at the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS) in Vienna assumed the crisis in Eurozone is over, saying that over the last year the Eurozone has gone back to a sustainable growth path.

He believes average growth for this year across the currency union will be 1.5 percent, noting the EU economy is recovering. But Hofer also said he would not be over optimistic about the EU economy.

While this is lower than earlier times, he said a positive is that many imbalances have been reduced, such as a weaker south compared to a stronger core such as Germany. Italy and Ireland in particular have overcome downturns and are back on the economic growth path.

Overall the conditions are not bad, Hofer believes, with research and development in countries such as Germany, as well as unemployment reductions, along with moderate inflation coupled with an increase in purchasing power all boding well for a stable recovery process in the Eurozone.

Euro would stop devaluating and would be more stable in the future, he said.

The expert saw some danger in the threat of a terror attack, but warned that a rise in nationalism could be bad economically. The present refugee crisis has also particularly burdened Austria, Germany, and Sweden.

He said he still believes in the European Union and that a solution to present political uncertainty can be found, as it was in the case of the Greek debt crisis.

He said Europe has had a tendency toward pessimism in this regard, and pointed to the United States as an example of where differing political views in the major parties can still exist alongside an overall optimism, and that while problems exist there is still discussion and an overall effort to try to solve them. Endit