OUTLOOK BRIEFING: Global investors more upbeat about Europe than some insiders

Global real estate investors are more relaxed about the economic ramifications of political conflicts and other problems in the European Union than some investors from inside Europe, according to Marcus Cieleback, head of research at German listed investment company Patrizia Immobilien.

Speaking at a recent Outlook Briefing held by PropertyEU at the Paris office of law firm Taylor Wessing, Cieleback said a lot of investors from outside Europe look at Europe as a whole, not so much at the EU or individual country problems.

Cieleback: ‘Therefore they are more willing to adopt a European strategy than some investors from inside Europe or the EU. Investors inside Europe are sometimes obsessed with questions about how developments will influence the euro, whether the euro will be stable, whether the EU will move forward and so on. But in the end, you need to look at it from the other side: what is the alternative? A lot of international players have realised that and simply go for a European strategy and don’t care so much about these details.’

EU INFIGHTING
While the recent election of Jean-Claude Juncker as the new president of the European Commission has ruffled the feathers of British prime minister David Cameron and other conservative politicians in London, Cieleback is not concerned that the rift will break up the EU or the eurozone. The practical implications of breaking up the eurozone are so immense that it would not be not feasible without jeopardising the whole European idea, including the free movement of capital and people, he argued.

‘All the European countries face challenges and these challenges come to the surface because we have the European Union and possibly some countries have the euro. They are not the sole source of the problems, but they are blamed for creating them. The political risk that we face now is governments failing to get across the European idea to the public. Destabilising the whole idea of EU could be more damaging than just dealing with country problems that currently exist.’

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