As promised a few weeks ago, here is a link to the video of EUI’s workshop “Life in the Eurozone With or Without Sovereign Default?” held a few weeks ago. All of the presentations were interesting but I’d particularly recommend Martin Hellwig’s presentation in part 2 and sovereign debt lawyers Mitu Gulati and Lee Buchheit’s presentations in part 3. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be video of Charles Calomiris’s thought-provoking presentation but his slides (and the other presentations) can be found by clicking on the links here.
Category: EMU
This post is well worth a read, if necessary using google translate. It essentially takes the well-known point that moderate inflation can be beneficial in that it helps downward real wage adjustment, in circumstances when this is necessary; and extends this to the context of real exchange rate adjustments in a diverse currency union. It also cites some supportive evidence from the history of the classical gold standard, courtesy of Flandreau, Le Chacheux and Zumer.
Colm McCarthy makes some important political points in today’s Sunday Independent. He points out, quite correctly, that the ECB’s policy of favouring an Irish sovereign default later over a private banking default now (and it is important to be clear that this is exactly their position, whether or not they publicly admit it) is going to make it very difficult, if not impossible, to get public buy-in for the further austerity measures coming down the line; and is also virtually certain to lead to increasing anti-EU sentiment here (and in the rest of the periphery as well).
But it’s worse than that. By confusing fiscal and banking crises in the public mind, the ECB is also fuelling anti-EU sentiment in the core, since core taxpayers understandably resent the notion that they should subsidize feckless peripheral taxpayers. By contrast, greater honesty about the fact that we have a Europe-wide banking crisis would make taxpayers everywhere realise that they have common interests, and a common enemy, namely an out-of-control financial sector. In such a scenario, ‘Europe’ might be seen by ordinary voters as having something positive to contribute, since cross-border banking requires cross-border regulation. Right now, however, ‘Europe’ is seen as a big part of the problem, in the case of the ECB correctly so.
Like Colm says, it really is a slow motion train wreck.
Dan O’Brien has an interesting article (and an accompanying news piece) in today’s Irish Times on the “behind-the-scenes” story of Ireland’s bailout. The article is based on interviews for a radio documentary to be aired tomorrow on BBC Radio 4.
I suspect that regular readers of this blog won’t be surprised at the story of how the ECB triggered Ireland’s bailout and then favoured a plan involving a larger upfront fiscal adjustment than the government were comfortable with and a massive and rapid downsizing of the banking sector.
Time will tell whether the ECB’s actions in November helped or hindered the resolution of Ireland’s economic problems. However, the story of November’s events does raise very serious questions about the role the ECB now plays in European politics. Should the key role in this historic decision have been played by an unelected and essentially unaccountable organisation?
Wolfgang Münchau outlines one possible scenario in today’s FT: a crisis-driven leap towards eurobonds, in the most toxic political circumstances possible.