Bruno Colmant was the guest of Pascal Vrebos this Sunday on RTL TVI. According to the professor of economics at UCLouvain and ICHEC, we risk going through several years of economic crisis.
Pascal Vrebos: You said, and I quote, “Most people and observations underestimate the magnitude of the coming crisis, and the challenge that the ecological and energy transition represents for our societies”. Deputy Prime Minister David Clarinval (MR) was in your place a month ago. He made the same speech. If I summarize, social blood, sweat and tears in the years to come?
Bruno Colmant: Yes, I think we’ll feel it in the fall, which will be an economic fall and perhaps an economic winter followingwards. Because inflation is very important. We will have inflation of 12% and I believe that prices will rise sharply in the food sector from September. Which means that there will be a purchasing power shock. Who says purchasing power shock, first says people who suffer. Companies that may have to compress staff to compensate for an increase in both wages and energy materials. So inflation generates what is called recession, stagflation. It’s a damaging scenario. And I think we’re gone for ten years.
Pascal Vrebos: How much?
Bruno Colmant: I think we are off to ten years of difficulties. Because all the ballasts (Editor’s note: reservoirs) of growth that we have had over the past 40 years, with a market economy model, are now being emptied. We can see it in all areas. The world is changing very quickly. We are no longer in the model of the 80s and 90s.
Pascal Vrebos: You also forget the scarcity of resources, the collateral effects of the war, social and economic. In other words, there are crises almost at all levels? Never seen?
Bruno Colmant: In all areas. We believed that we were going to live in a market economy, that the world would be harmonious, at peace in a large market. Today, we see that this world is cracking once more. That there are dramatic food and ecological problems. So the scarcity of goods that we have not seen since the war is a reality that will impose itself on us. Who says scarcity of goods, who says climate problems, says at a certain time social violence, claims, uneasiness. Moreover, we have seen it, and it is a very important signal in history with the yellow vests. Three years ago now, we realized that a slight increase in travel costs for people who had to use their cars created a major social shock. I believe there will be others.
