The European Commission recently raised the EU's economic growth forecast this year to 1.8%, nearly twice the forecast made in May this year. Although the EU's economic recovery momentum is obviously better than originally expected, the prospects are still full of uncertainties. Faced with three major risks: the financial market is still fragile, the rebound of private consumption is weak and the export situation is becoming increasingly severe, the EU economy can be described as internal and external troubles.

The risk of financial turmoil still exists.

In the first half of this year, a sovereign debt crisis originating from Greece hit many countries in the euro zone, causing European financial markets to fall into violent turmoil again. Taking May this year as a "watershed", thanks to the nearly one trillion euro rescue mechanism launched by the European Union that month, the European debt crisis passed the worst moment.

Since May, the spreads of government bonds and corporate bonds in most EU countries have narrowed, but they are still far higher than the level when the European debt crisis just broke out at the beginning of this year.

This shows that although investors' concerns about sovereign debt risks have eased, they have not been significantly eliminated. The European debt crisis is far from over, and the debt problems of Greece, Spain and other countries may become a "cancer" endangering the financial stability of the EU at any time.

In late July, the European Union first published the results of the European banking stress test. The results show that among the 9 1 European banks that have accepted the "physical examination", only 7 failed, and the remaining 84 can withstand the double blow of the double dip in the economy and the escalation of the sovereign debt crisis. This result was originally quite optimistic, but it was questioned by the outside world, especially because it was considered to underestimate the risk of sovereign debt.

After repeated shocks of financial crisis and debt crisis, European financial industry has been greatly weakened. A few days ago, the global stock market plummeted, and the reason behind it was that the health of European banks once again caused concern. According to the American Wall Street Journal, the bank stress test conducted by the European Union in July underestimated the bad debts held by some European banks, which means that the European banking industry is not as healthy as reflected in the stress test.

In the economic forecast report, the European Commission also admitted that the possibility that Europe's financial situation is tight again cannot be ruled out.

Banks face financing test.

The European Commission believes that with the temporary easing of the European debt crisis, the focus of the market is shifting from whether European financial institutions will reverse to financing difficulties. At present, the European stock market is still in a downturn, and European financial institutions are about to usher in a round of financing peak. Whether they can successfully raise funds will be a severe test.

According to the estimation of the International Monetary Fund, the total debts of euro zone banks due this year are about 877 billion euros, and they will be 7.7/kloc-0.0 billion euros and 7/kloc-0.0 billion euros respectively in the next two years, which need to be repaid through refinancing. At the same time, according to Basel III just released in June, 5438+02, European banks need to further enrich their capital in the next few years to meet stricter capital ratio requirements.

Financing difficulties will not only affect the stability of the banking industry, but also limit the lending capacity of banks and affect the real economic sector.

According to official EU data, in recent months, loans from European financial institutions to households have grown slowly, while loans to non-financial enterprises have continued to decline. The latest survey by the European Central Bank also shows that European financial institutions are tightening their credit to enterprises, partly because they are worried about the European debt crisis.

If the European banking industry can't get out of the predicament and the situation of reluctance to lend can't be alleviated, it will have a great impact on the European real economy, because European enterprises have always relied heavily on bank financing.

According to the estimation of the European Central Bank, 70% of the financing of non-financial enterprises in the euro zone depends on bank loans, while 80% of the financing of American enterprises is directly through the capital market.

Domestic demand and external demand are both attacked.

Internally, in addition to the gloomy financial situation, the weak rebound of private consumption is another major worry of the EU economy.

In the first two quarters of this year, the EU's economic recovery was mainly driven by exports, while the growth of private consumption and investment was weak or even declined.

As the largest economy in the EU, Germany's economic recovery momentum is the strongest among all EU member States, which is more due to exports. The latest data released by the German government on June 5438+04 shows that in the first half of this year, German exports surged 17. 1% year-on-year, among which exports to non-EU countries increased by 26.2%.

On the one hand, the lack of domestic demand in EU countries is due to the high unemployment rate, which inhibits people's consumption, and on the other hand, it is also related to the implementation of fiscal austerity plans in many member States.

However, insufficient domestic demand and excessive dependence on exports for economic recovery cast a shadow over the growth of the EU economy in the second half of the year. In view of the fact that the pace of global economic recovery will slow down in the second half of this year, trade growth will also slow down, and the export situation in the EU will become increasingly severe, which will further drag down economic growth.

According to the estimation of the European Commission, in the third and fourth quarters of this year, the economic recovery momentum of the EU will be weakened, and the growth rate of the chain will be reduced from 1% in the second quarter to 0.5% and 0.3%.

However, Ollie Rehn, a member of the European Commission in charge of economic and monetary affairs, believes that although the EU economy is still full of uncertainties, the advantages and disadvantages are roughly the same, and there is no danger of a double dip in the EU economy, and the recovery momentum is obvious.