What Shipping Can Tell Us About Europe’s Efforts to Face the Risk of COVID-19-Induced ‘Japanification’

Theodore Pelagidis & Hercules Haralambides

Published: September 2020

Shipping leads the ‘dance’ on the way up and if this is indeed true, the post-COVID-19 economic recovery should not be long, if one is to judge from the relative prosperity of containerised shipping as of Q2, 2020. Most EU member states may face a new risk ahead: ‘Japanification’, an unwillingness to increase household spending and often business expenditure/demand, along with the inability of monetary policy to balance savings and investments. When things get better, and the COVID-19 infection curve flattens close to zero, European leaders will have to come up with new ideas on the rebirth of the European dream, if they want to prevent a new round of authoritarianism and populism throughout Europe.