Hedging our bets

For European politicians and businesses of all sizes, today’s outlook is uncertain, at best. Despite non-stop expert analysis, no one can predict the decisions that will be taken in Washington and Moscow. And no one can rule out the potentially dramatic consequences of the internal pressures on the regimes in the US and Russia. Nevertheless, European governments need to manage their economies and plan for the future, and businesses large and small, need to do likewise.

An inevitable consequence of the current uncertainties is that European countries, and companies operating in Europe, are hedging their bets. Wherever possible European leaders are flattering the volatile US president while frantically building up independent European defence capabilities and new trade and cooperation links. Many companies, already caught by heavy US tariffs are taking steps to reduce their dependencies on US markets. Even the US tech companies rushing to build data centres in the UK could be seen as taking out insurance against unpredictable US policies and stringent EU ones.

At the Industry Forum, we are taking our own advice and widening our horizons towards Europe and Asia. On economic grounds, we opposed Brexit and so we are enthusiastic about the current government’s plans to work more closely with the rest of Europe because this is the best way to compete in the new world order. We have a number of major European companies as members and we would like to gradually increase this. We will work with IF members and friends to build business contacts and links across Europe, and also Canada, India, Japan and possibly some other countries. We intend to hold more meetings on international trade, geopolitical trends and especially technology developments in digital and life sciences. These meetings will be in addition to our primary focus on key issues in the UK economy. We continue to believe that, despite strong headwinds, the government's measures to bring stability and growth to the UK economy, and improve public services, will increase productivity and bring productive growth. One sign that this is happening was headlined in the Financial Times this week: 'NHS hospital productivity rebounds in boost for Reeves’ spending plans'.