Billionaire prophet of doom George Soros said the European Union is on the “verge of collapse” as it faces five or six crises at once.
“The Greek crisis taught the European authorities the art of muddling through one crisis after another. This practice is popularly known as kicking the can down the road, although it would be more accurate to describe it as kicking a ball uphill so that it keeps rolling back down,” Soros said in an interview with The New York Review of Books.
Soros achieved fame in 1992 by making a huge profit by shorting the British pound before it left the Europe’s exchange-rate mechanism, a system of exchange rates pegged to a trading band that was a precursor to the euro. Among the myriad problems facing Europe, ranging from Russian aggression to Greece, he says the migrant problem is the biggest threat. More than an estimated million asylum seekers came into Europe last year alone, largely from Syria.
The billionaire trader said German Chancellor Angela Merkel “correctly foresaw the potential of the migration crisis” to destroy Europe, something which has become a reality. With her leadership now under threat, the only people who can stop her “dire prediction” from coming true are the Germans themselves, who must step up and face the responsibilities of being a “dominant power in Europe,” he said.
He criticized Europe for not having a decent asylum policy, which he said has turned the refugee situation from a “manageable crisis” into an “acute political crisis,” panicking not just the those seeking shelter, but the general public as well.
Soros has said his charitable foundation is advocating for a plan that would allow asylum seeks to reach the safety of Europe in an orderly manner. Admitting that would cost money, he suggested that the EU issuing long-term bonds using its “largely untapped AAA borrowing capacity,” to foot the bill.
