Channelling euro-zone savings into financing the energy transition makes no sense, except for the savings lent to the rest of the world

We often hear the argument that Europeans' savings should be channelled into financing the energy transition. To analyse this question, we need to distinguish between savings lent to the rest of the world (which is identical to the current account surplus) and savings lent to economic agents resident in the euro zone. As far as the latter is concerned, we need to understand that we are faced with a zero-sum game: if more savings are used to finance the energy transition, there will be less savings available to finance fiscal deficits and corporate investments (other than those linked to the energy transition) and to finance investments in housing. The measure that should be applied to increase the financing of energy transition investments is to use the savings currently lent by the euro zone to the rest of the world for this financing. This requires restoring capital mobility within the euro zone, which requires a change in regulations (so that pan-European banks can transfer liquidity from one of their euro-zone subsidiaries to another), and also a change in the preference of countries with a savings surplus (mainly Germany), which currently prefer to invest this surplus in the rest of the world (particularly in the United States) rather than in other euro-zone countries.