The deadly attacks in Paris could start affecting the world economy if the fallout persists, a leading expert on global political risk said Monday.
"Nine-eleven, when it hit, you couldn't ask for a 'better time.' [George W. Bush] was at the beginning of a very popular presidency. The economy was doing well. We weren't in an electoral season. The allies were strong," Ian Bremmer, founder and president of the consulting firm Eurasia Group, told CNBC's "Squawk Box."
The current terror concerns sweeping the globe are happening in the midst of the presidential election in the U.S., regional elections in France, the Syrian refugee crisis, and weaker alliances between the U.S. and its European partners, Bremmer said. "The politics being made in the U.S. and more broadly on the back of this ... disaster is worse than I've ever seen following a major disaster in a developed economy," he said.
CEOs are not yet losing faith in the nascent economic recovery in Europe, Bremmer said. "[But] in 2016, you're just not going to have that level of confidence." With French President Francois Hollande calling for a three month state of emergency following the attacks, "the impact that has on the French consumer is real," he said.
Searching for those behind the deadly Nov. 13 attacks in Paris, Belgian authorities arrested 16 people, but not alleged accomplice Salah Abdeslam, the 26-year-old Brussels suspect who's been on the run since he left Paris hours after his brother blew himself up at a cafe there. Belgium's capital city was in its third day on lockdown Monday, with public transportation, schools and many businesses closed, after the prime minister warned of imminent Paris-style attacks.
The economies of Europe are "incredibly vulnerable to large numbers of Muslim citizens that feel disenfranchised within their countries and an extraordinary number of refugees that are just starting to come over," Bremmer said.