Political Vulnerability Drives Up Financing Costs in Several European Countries: An Allianz index tracking political vulnerability using weekly polls across eight European countries has surged to its highest level in eight years, reflecting factors such as fragmentation of party systems, voter dissatisfaction with mainstream parties, polarization of political stances towards extremes, and weakened governance. A significant change in political vulnerability (i.e., a shift of "one standard deviation") would widen the spread between Italy's 10-year borrowing costs and the benchmark swap rate by nearly 0.5 percentage points. The spread in France would widen by about one-third percentage points, while in Belgium and the UK it would widen by about one-quarter percentage points. Since 2022, political vulnerability has increased cumulative interest payments by approximately €100 billion in Italy, France, Spain, Belgium, and the UK. This averages about 3% of these countries' annual debt interest payments, with Italy reaching as high as 5%.
