Παραμένει σε βαθειά ύφεση η οικονομία - 6,4% το β’ 6μηνο

Καθημερινή
7 Σεπτεμβρίου 2012

Σε μεγάλη ύφεση, της τάξης του 6,3%, βρέθηκε και το β΄τρίμηνο εφέτος η ελληνική οικονομία, εξαιτίας της συρρίκνωσης επενδύσεων και κατανάλωσης. Η Ελληνική Στατιστική Αρχή (ΕΛΣΤΑΤ), μετέβαλε, έστω και οριακά, επί τα χείρω τις αρχικές εκτιμήσεις της για μείωση του ΑΕΠ το β΄ τρίμηνο κατά 6,2%.

Ως αποτέλεσμα, μετά και την πτώση του ΑΕΠ κατά 6,5% το α΄ τρίμηνο, η ύφεση στην Ελλάδα το α΄ εξάμηνο να είναι της τάξης του 6,4%.

Διεθνείς οργανισμοί εκτιμούν ότι για το σύνολο του 2012 η μείωση του ΑΕΠ στην ελληνική οικονομία θα αγγίξει το 7% και η χώρα θα βιώσει το 5ο έτος συνεχούς ύφεσης. Ενώ, θεωρείται δεδομένο ότι οι πρόσθετοι περιορισμοί στα εισοδήματα με το νέο πακέτο των μέτρων, θα επιδεινώσουν την κατάσταση.

Σύμφωνα με την ΕΛΣΤΑΤ, οι βασικές αιτίες για τη συνεχιζόμενη ύφεση είναι η συρρίκνωση των ακαθάριστων επενδύσεων παγίου κεφαλαίου κατά 19,4%, και η πτώση της καταναλωτικής δαπάνης των νοικοκυριών κατά 8% (η συνολική καταναλωτική δαπάνη μειώθηκε κατά 7,2%).

Στον αντίποδα, ο περιορισμός του ελλείμματος του εμπορικού ισοζυγίου κατά 39,9%, αντιστάθμισε μόνο εν μέρει τη μείωση του ΑΕΠ.

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The ECB puts a sting in the tail

by Stephanie Flanders

BBC News
September 7, 2012

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger famously asked: "If I want to talk to Europe, which number do I call?" For the past three years, global financial markets have been asking a similar question: "If I want to destroy the euro, who's going to stop me?"

Surveying the carnage in European financial markets, investors wanted to know who, or what, ultimately stood behind this currency. When push came to shove, who was ultimately going to be there, with deep pockets, to hold the whole thing together.

Governments have tried, and failed to take on this role, while the European Central Bank (ECB) has tried very hard to avoid it. But yesterday, to an important extent, it gave up trying.

Yes, the support the ECB president described will come with conditions. Yes, it has come pretty late in the day. And yes, the president of the German central bank has a point when he suggests that the central bank is putting its independence at risk with this "unlimited" pledge, and potentially building up trouble for the future propping up governments.

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Output effects of fiscal consolidations

by Carlo Favero and Francesco Giavazzi

Vox
September 7, 2012

The austerity debate hangs on the question of how fiscal policy affects economic output – but answering that question is no easy task. This column presents a paper that, it argues, overcomes some of the problems with identifying cause and effect.

The austerity debate turns on a central economic logic – how does fiscal policy affect output? This is a tricky question since declining output can affect fiscal policy just as much as fiscal policy can affect growth. Governments, after all, don’t make policy in a vacuum.

The key to estimating the effects of fiscal policy on output is this identifying shifts in fiscal policy that are 'exogenous'. Policy changes that are not a response to the state of output – as would be the case, for instance, of a fiscal expansion induced by a fall in output.

Following the approach pioneered by Romer and Romer (2010), Devries at al. (2011) have collected and described – using the records available in official documents – the multi-year fiscal consolidation plans announced (and then implemented or revised) by 17 OECD countries over a quarter of a century (1980-2005). Among all these stabilisation plans the authors have selected those that were designed to reduce a budget deficit and to put the public debt on a sustainable path, which should guarantee their 'exogeneity'.

Using the Devries et al (2011) data, we find that it matters crucially how the consolidation occurs (Alesina et al. 2012).

• Fiscal adjustments based upon spending cuts are much less costly in terms of output losses than tax-based ones.

The difference is remarkable in its size and it cannot be explained by different monetary policies during the two types of adjustments. We find instead that:

• The heterogeneity in the effects of the two types of fiscal adjustments is mainly due to the response of private investment, rather than that to consumption growth.

Interestingly, the responses of business and consumers’ confidence to different types of fiscal adjustment show the same asymmetry as investment and consumption: business confidence (unlike consumer confidence) picks up immediately after expenditure-based adjustments.

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Read the Paper

The ECB Wades In Deeper

Wall Street Journal
Editorial
September 6, 2012

Mario Draghi laid out the European Central Bank's latest bond-buying venture Thursday, and we suppose the good news is that it isn't as sweeping as it might have been.

In July the ECB President said the central bank would do "whatever it takes" to keep the euro zone together. Speculation has since been rife that Mr. Draghi was preparing a bond-buying bazooka to bring down the yields of Spanish and Italian government bonds.

The Outright Monetary Transactions program that Mr. Draghi announced Thursday amounts to a moderate-sized bazooka, despite Mr. Draghi's insistence that it is merely about making monetary policy work. In practical terms these transactions are another giant step into fiscal policy. This is far from the original vision of the euro, and the costs to the central bank's political independence will be steep.

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European Central Bank trots out another fix for the euro crisis

Washington Post
Editorial
September 7, 2012

As its annual vacation season ends, Europe is sinking into an economic bog. Unemployment in Greece is 24.4 percent; capital flight from Spain is accelerating and barter is spreading; Italy’s growth rate has turned negative. Even in France, thought to be one of Europe’s economic pillars, unemployment tops 10 percent. Though Europe’s leaders have held summit after summit, and announced one plan after another, nothing they have done seems to have ended the continent’s frightening decline.

Now comes the latest proposed fix, from the European Central Bank. Bank President Mario Draghi announced Thursday that it will buy short- and medium-term government bonds of debt-swamped countries — most notably Spain and Italy — thus reducing their financing costs. The ECB will offset these purchases by selling other securities on its balance sheet, thus “sterilizing” its bond purchases and preventing inflation. The upshot is that the ECB has offered to replace the private credit markets as a source of cash for these troubled countries, thus relieving them of the threat of bond-market-imposed insolvency.

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The Latest Attempt to Save the Euro

New York Times
Editorial
September 6, 2012

It took a while, but on Thursday Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, explained what he meant last July when he said he would do whatever it takes to save the euro.

Largely as expected, Mr. Draghi said that the E.C.B. plans to buy government bonds issued by troubled euro zone nations, a strategy to hold down borrowing costs in countries like Spain and Italy and, in the process, buy them time to rebuild their recession-racked economies.

What wasn’t fully anticipated was the bleak economic backdrop of the announcement. The E.C.B. revised its projections downward to show a contraction in the euro zone this year of 0.2 percent to 0.6 percent. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development also downgraded its assessment, saying that the euro zone recession would worsen in the second half of 2012 while growth in other developed nations, including the United States, would continue to be slow.

Financial markets mostly ignored the pessimistic forecasts, instead rallying on the E.C.B.’s pledge of a new rescue effort. But the broader economic picture underscores the urgency — and limitations — of the latest move.

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The weakest will win in the euro battle

by John Plender

Financial Times
September 6, 2012

In the age-old battle between creditors and debtors, weak sovereign borrowers and overstretched banks more often than not triumph over financially strong creditors. Look no further than the unfolding eurozone saga for confirmation of this rule. Indeed the latest European Central Bank initiative to buy distressed eurozone sovereign debt through so-called outright monetary transactions perfectly illustrates how the illusion of creditor power is progressively being stripped away.

Of course, Germany is the dominant actor in this drama. Yes, it has been the chief architect of moralistic austerity programmes for “profligate” citizens of southern Europe and Ireland as a precondition of transfers that the German people would otherwise regard as anathema. True, the burden of adjustment is widely seen as falling exclusively on the debtors, who will be subject to supposedly strict conditionality under the ECB’s new buying plan.

Yet the underlying reality is that the ECB’s new initiative, aimed at putting to rest investors’ fears about the reversibility of the euro, may prove to be just one in a succession of implicit transfers to the eurozone’s distressed debtors.

There is no escaping the fact that northern Europe has incurred substantial losses on its loans to southern Europe and Ireland, which have yet to be fully recognised. When formal default occurs this will simply confirm that an involuntary resource transfer has taken place, as Mark Cliffe, group chief economist at ING, points out.

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Euro-Area Bond-Buying Plan Is Progress

Bloomberg
Editorial
September 6, 2012

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi has announced his much-anticipated bond-buying plan. The short version: The bank will purchase sovereign bonds on the open market in unlimited quantities, but only after troubled countries request the aid and agree to fiscal conditions that other euro-area governments would impose.

It’s not the shock and awe we called for, but it is an important move and could relieve the financial pressure on Spain, Italy and other distressed euro-area governments. However, we have a few reservations.

Before we get to them, give Draghi some credit for pressing on with his plan over the opposition of Germany’s Bundesbank. Give Draghi credit, too, for the fact that his diagnosis of the problem is mostly correct.

The price of Spanish and Italian debt had begun to reflect not just solvency concerns but also the fear that the euro system might unravel. Guaranteeing the integrity of the currency system -- which is how Draghi rationalizes his plan -- is a proper and reasonable role for the ECB.

Draghi was also right to say that the ECB’s interventions would be “unlimited.” An arbitrary ceiling would have given the markets a target to shoot down. A similar logic applies to his decision not to announce a formal cap on borrowing costs for countries whose bonds the ECB will buy. That would have failed the credibility test and been one more hostage to fortune.

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Τα σχέδια του Ντράγκι

της Ελίζας Παπαδάκη

Τα Νέα
6 Σεπτεμβρίου 2012

Παρά τις επαναλαμβανόμενες διαβεβαιώσεις των ευρωπαίων ηγετών για την προσήλωσή τους στην Ευρώπη και το ευρώ, η απειλή να διαλυθεί η νομισματική ένωση είναι παρούσα. Διότι οι διαβεβαιώσεις παραμένουν γενικόλογες. Βήματα έχουν γίνει, σημαντικά μάλιστα, αλλά εξακολουθούν να απέχουν από το αναγκαίο ενιαίο, συγκεκριμένο σχέδιο για να ξεπεραστεί η κρίση και να προχωρήσουν από κοινού οι χώρες της ευρωζώνης. Ισχυρό εμπόδιο είναι οι εντεινόμενες τάσεις στις εθνικές κοινωνίες κατά της ευρωπαϊκής ενοποίησης και αλληλεγγύης, της δυσπιστίας μέχρι και εχθρικής προκατάληψης σε κάθε χώρα απέναντι στις υπόλοιπες, στις βόρειες ιδίως κατά των νοτίων που δοκιμάζονται από την κρίση του χρέους, αλλά και αντίστροφα∙ τις καλλιεργούν πολιτικοί και διαμορφωτές της κοινής γνώμης, υπηρετώντας ποικίλα επιμέρους βραχυχρόνια συμφέροντα. Ετσι, ενώ ορκίζονται στην Ευρώπη, οι σημερινοί πρωθυπουργοί ή πρόεδροι φαίνεται να βρίσκονται σε αδυναμία να τις αποκρούσουν άμεσα και αποφασιστικά, καθώς απέναντι στα εθνικά τους ακροατήρια αισθάνονται κατά πρώτο λόγο υπόλογοι, σε αυτά προσβλέπουν για να επανεκλεγούν.

Με τις ανησυχητικές τάσεις επανεθνικοποίησης πολιτικών και ιδεολογιών ίσως να επιβίωνε για κάποιο χρόνο η Ευρώπη, ώσπου να ωριμάσουν οι συνθήκες για την υπέρβασή τους, με την προϋπόθεση ότι θα καταβάλλονταν πολύ πιο έντονες προσπάθειες για να συγκρατηθούν λαϊκοί φόβοι και να μεταστραφεί μια διογκούμενη σήμερα αρνητική κοινή γνώμη, για να ανοίξει ξανά πειστικά μια προοπτική απασχόλησης και ευημερίας για όλες τις χώρες-μέλη. Τέτοιες διαδικασίες στις δημοκρατίες απαιτούν χρόνο. Αυτός ο χρόνος όμως πλέον δεν υπάρχει. Ο κατακερματισμός της κοινής χρηματοπιστωτικής αγοράς που στηρίζει το ευρώ είναι ήδη γεγονός. Το τεκμηριώνουν τα τελευταία στατιστικά στοιχεία που δημοσίευσε η Ευρωπαϊκή Κεντρική Τράπεζα: για ένα δάνειο μέχρι πέντε ετών μια ισπανική μικρομεσαία επιχείρηση καταβάλλει επιτόκιο 6,5%, μια ιταλική 6,24%, ενώ μια γερμανική 4%, το χαμηλότερο από το 2003, μια γαλλική 4,1%. Στην Ελλάδα η αντίστοιχη επιχείρηση δανείζεται με 7,6%! Με τέτοια ακριβά επιτόκια που επιβαρύνουν το κόστος παραγωγής, πώς να ανακτήσουν ανταγωνιστικότητα και πώς να δημιουργήσουν θέσεις εργασίας εκείνες ακριβώς οι χώρες που πλήττονται σήμερα; Και πόσο δυσκολότερο γίνεται, επομένως, να ανταποκριθούν στις δεσμεύσεις για τη δημοσιονομική εξυγίανση και για τις μεταρρυθμίσεις που έχουν αναλάβει, όταν η ύφεση βαθαίνει και η ανεργία αυξάνεται; Ο κατακερματισμός εκφράζεται άλλωστε και στη μείωση των διασυνοριακών πιστώσεων στην ευρωζώνη - από 60% στα μέσα του 2011 σε 40% τώρα - καθώς οι τράπεζες σπεύδουν να περιορίσουν την έκθεσή τους στις χώρες της λεγόμενης «περιφέρειας».

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The ECB acts – but still needs help

by Mohamed El-Erian

Financial Times
September 6, 2012

This year, the critical question in Europe has changed from whether policymakers could find the required policy instincts – they have – to whether they are moving fast enough to get ahead of the deleveraging by the private sector.

By announcing a new conditional bond purchase program on Thursday, the European Central Bank took a major step to close what, at one time, seemed a near-insurmountable deficit in this race. It now needs the support of other policymaking bodies to fully eliminate the gap.

European policymakers and politicians were very slow in 2009-10. Insufficient understanding of regional debt dynamics, together with widespread denial that Europe could be on the receiving end of a typical “emerging market crisis,” made it even harder to coordinate policy in a monetary union with very different initial conditions among its 17 member countries. The longer this persisted, the more policies fell behind the exiting of private capital.

As the regional crisis deepened in 2011, governments and the ECB adopted a policy approach more commensurate with the complexity of the crisis. Namely, seeking to break the link between sovereign credit deterioration and banking sector weakness, trying to change the policy mix for struggling countries and, at the regional level, addressing design flaws in the original monetary union through banking and fiscal unions and closer political integration.

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The Markets Will Not Do The ECB's Bidding

by George Kesarios

Seeking Alpha
September 6, 2012

The ECB is trying to make the markets do its bidding. In essence, it is trying to copy Federal Reserve tactics. That is, tell the markets what you want to do and how far you want to go and hope the market will front run you.

However, in order for this tactic to work, you need to have credibility. Credibility is something that the ECB does have.

Yes the leaks, rumors and expectations that the ECB will be forced to do something, has lowered yields a bit on Spanish and Italian debt over the past several weeks. However, a bit lower means that the market does not believe the ECB. If the markets believed full-heartedly that the ECB will bring Spanish and Italian yields low enough to really make a difference, then I think we would have seen massive buying in the debt markets.

And talking about credibility, how does the ECB expect to sterilize these operations? Also, why would the ECB want to sterilize these operations in the first place? I mean, isn't the whole QE thing about unsterilized operations? Also, I find it almost impossible to believe they will sterilize these operations offering the markets a 0.10% yield.

Before the Greek PSI, the ECB bought about 50 billion euros of Greek bonds. The only thing it accomplished was to temporarily stop the fall of Greek bonds and to give a break to desperate bond investors, who found a buyer and dumped Greek debt on the ECB.

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Tick tock: Events as early as next week could challenge the assumption that time is on the euro zone’s side

Economist
September 8, 2012

At least August was quiet. Thanks to Mario Draghi, chief of the European Central Bank (ECB), euro-zone policymakers got some badly needed R&R. His promise in July to “do whatever it takes” to protect the euro from speculation was enough to persuade traders to pack their bags and head for the Riviera. Yet the euro zone now looks woefully behind in its mission to save the single currency. That is partly because a rescue is genuinely complicated. But it is also because too many people think that time is on their side.

Just now, sluggishness may seem like an odd accusation. The next month will contain a summer’s worth of news. As we went to press, Mr Draghi was to put flesh on his pledge to limit the cost of medium-term borrowing by governments (and hence companies). On September 12th Germany’s senior court will rule on whether a euro-zone rescue fund is constitutional. The same day the Dutch will vote and the European Commission will unveil its thoughts on a Europe-wide banking supervisor—a step towards a banking union. Within weeks the troika that has just arrived in Athens will report back on whether to give Greece its next slug of rescue money. And all the while, a restless succession of meetings will continue as leaders prepare for a big summit in October.

But, measured against what needs to be done, this is inadequate. Even if the ECB successfully intervenes, the euro zone’s politicians must ultimately determine the euro’s fate. Although work on a banking union has begun, they are many months away from actually setting one up. Leaders increasingly recognise the dangers of excessive austerity, but they still routinely demand harsh budgets as a token of merit. The debate about mutualising some government debt, which this newspaper thinks essential to restoring confidence, has barely begun. The vague German demand to shift political power to federal Brussels has hardly been broached in France.

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Will Mario Draghi’s plan be enough?

by Stephanie Flanders

BBC News
September 6, 2012

If Jean-Claude Trichet had ever declared that the European Central Bank (ECB) was willing to provide a "fully effective backstop" against the break-up of the euro, it's quite possible that the crisis in the eurozone would be over by now.

Of course countries like Spain would still be having a tough time, but we might well not be talking about them as much - and we might not be paying so much attention to ECB press conferences.

Needless to say, Mario Draghi's predecessor at the top of the ECB never said anything nearly as supportive. And the bond purchases he reluctantly sanctioned in 2010 and 2011 were a lot more half-hearted than the programme of "outright monetary transactions" described, at some length, by Mr Draghi, today.

Is talk of an ECB "backstop" enough to resolve the crisis in the autumn of 2012, under President Draghi? Initially, some in the financial markets seemed to have their doubts. The immediate reaction to Mr Draghi was that people sold euros, and the value of the currency fell. But stock markets have leaped since the end of the press conference, suggesting that - for once -the ECB has not disappointed.

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Άλλαξε το κοινωνικό πρόσωπο της χώρας

του Απόστολου Λακασά

Καθημερινή
6 Σεπτεμβρίου 2012

Εκθεση του Εθνικού Κέντρου Κοινωνικών Ερευνών αποτυπώνει τις δραματικές μεταβολές στην Ελλάδα του 2012, εξαιτίας της κρίσης

Τα τελευταία δυόμισι χρόνια, η ελληνική κοινωνία έζησε κοσμοϊστορικές αλλαγές. Βεβαιότητες για συνεχή βελτίωση της οικονομικής κατάστασης της χώρας, και κατ' επέκταση των ατομικών εισοδημάτων, ακυρώθηκαν, οι άνεργοι τριπλασιάστηκαν, τα έσοδα των εργαζομένων μειώθηκαν κατά 13,2 δισεκατομμύρια ευρώ. Αυτά προκύπτουν από την έρευνα «Το κοινωνικό πορτρέτο της Ελλάδας 2012» του Εθνικού Κέντρου Κοινωνικών Ερευνών (ΕΚΚΕ), την οποία παρουσιάζει σήμερα η Κ.

Το μείζον ζήτημα της ελληνικής κοινωνίας σήμερα είναι η ανεργία. Περίπου 900 θέσεις εργασίας χάνονται κάθε μέρα στην Ελλάδα, λέει το ΕΚΚΕ, οι άνεργοι έχουν ξεπεράσει το 1 εκατομμύριο, το ποσοστό της ανεργίας κινείται στο 23%. «Στην αρχή σκέφτεσαι ότι εντάξει, τώρα δεν έχεις δουλειά, αύριο θα βρούμε δουλειά. Περνάει λίγο ο καιρός, δεν βρίσκεις δουλειά, μπαίνεις στο χρέος, αναγκαστικά, και την οικονομική ανέχεια. Το συνειδητοποιείς πολύ σύντομα...», είπε ένας 55χρονος στους ερευνητές του ΕΚΚΕ. Η λιτότητα και η ύφεση ανέδειξαν νέα ή όξυναν προϋπάρχοντα προβλήματα και στρεβλώσεις της ελληνικής οικονομίας, που τοποθετούν τη χώρα πολύ χαμηλά στους δείκτες της ανταγωνιστικότητας, διεθνώς. Ολιγοπώλια και κλειστά επαγγέλματα, υπερτροφικό και μη παραγωγικό κράτος, αναποτελεσματική δημόσια διοίκηση, γραφειοκρατία και διαφθορά, στρεβλό παραγωγικό μοντέλο, υψηλές ασφαλιστικές εισφορές, χαμηλή παραγωγικότητα είναι ορισμένα από αυτά.

«Αναμφισβήτητα, η πιο εντυπωσιακή και δραματική συνέπεια της πολύπλευρης κρίσης, που αντιμετωπίζει η χώρα από το 2009, είναι η κατάρρευση του κοινωνικού συμβολαίου που είχε συνομολογηθεί την περίοδο της Μεταπολίτευσης ανάμεσα στα δύο κόμματα που εναλλάσσονταν στην εξουσία και τα μικρομεσαία στρώματα (δημόσιοι υπάλληλοι, επαγγελματίες, μικροϊδιοκτήτες)». Αυτό αναφέρουν οι ερευνητές (Α. Μουρίκη, Δ. Μπαλούρδος, Ο. Παπαλιού, Ν. Σπυροπούλου, Ε. Φαγαδάκη. Ε. Φρονίμου), οι οποίοι τονίζουν επίσης την ανάγκη να ενισχυθεί η κοινωνική έρευνα στη χώρα μας, που κινδυνεύει να συρρικνωθεί λόγω της ανάγκης για δραστικές περικοπές και των συγχωνεύσεων φορέων.

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Διαβάστε τη μελέτη του ΕΚΚΕ

Ανεργία: Άλμα στο 24,4% με 1,22 εκατ. ανέργους

Καθημερινή
6 Σεπτεμβρίου 2012

Στο 24,4% εκτινάχθηκε η ανεργία στη χώρα τον Ιούνιο, από 23,5% τον Μάιο 2012 και 17,2% τον Ιούνιο πέρυσι. Άνεργοι είναι πλέον 1.216.410 άτομα, καθώς μέσα σε έναν χρόνο περίπου 1.000 πολίτες έχαναν κάθε ημέρα την εργασία τους. Ειδικά για τους νέους έως 24 ετών, η ανεργία αποτελεί «μάστιγα» και καταρρίπτει κάθε αρνητικό ρεκόρ, καθώς «εκτοξεύτηκε» στο 55%. Αλλά, και στην πλέον παραγωγική ηλικιακή ομάδα (25- 34 ετών), η ανεργία «σκαρφάλωσε» στο 32,1%.

Αναλυτικά, από την έρευνα εργατικού δυναμικού της Ελληνικής Στατιστικής Αρχής (ΕΛΣΤΑΤ), προκύπτουν τα εξής:

Οι άνεργοι ανήλθαν τον Ιούνιο εφέτος σε 1.216.410 άτομα και αυξήθηκαν κατά 358.334 άτομα σε σχέση με τον Ιούνιο πέρυσι (αύξηση 41,8%) και κατά 50.666 άτομα σε σχέση με τον Μάιο 2012 (αύξηση 4,3%).

Το σύνολο των απασχολουμένων εκτιμάται ότι ανήλθε σε 3.766.415 άτομα και μειώθηκαν κατά 358.340 άτομα σε σχέση με τον Ιούνιο 2011 (μείωση 8,7%) και κατά 34.337 άτομα σε σχέση με τον Μάιο 2012 (μείωση 0,9%).

Ο οικονομικά μη ενεργός πληθυσμός ανήλθε σε 3.372.097 άτομα. Οι οικονομικά μη ενεργοί (τα άτομα που δεν εργάζονται ούτε αναζητούν εργασία), αυξήθηκαν κατά 20.194 άτομα σε σχέση με τον Ιούνιο πέρυσι (αύξηση 0,6%) και κατά 5.251 άτομα σε σχέση με τον Μάιο 2012 (αύξηση 0,16%).

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European Exceptionalism

by Jean-Claude Trichet

Project Syndicate
September 6, 2012

The creation of Europe’s economic and monetary union is unique in the history of sovereign states. The eurozone constitutes a “society of states” of a completely new type, one that transcends the traditional Westphalian concept of sovereignty.

Like individuals in a society, eurozone countries are both independent and interdependent. They can affect each other both positively and negatively. Good governance requires that individual member states and the European Union’s institutions fulfill their responsibilities. Above all, economic and monetary union means just that: two unions, monetary and economic.

Europe’s monetary union has worked remarkably well. Since the euro’s launch in 1999, price stability has been maintained for 17 countries and 332 million people, with average yearly inflation of just 2.03% – better than Germany’s record from 1955 to 1999. Moreover, the eurozone has created 14.5 million new jobs since 1999, compared to 8.5-9 million in the United States. This is not to say that Europe does not have a serious unemployment problem; but there is no obvious inferiority in Europe: all advanced economies must boost job creation.

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Waiting for Draghi

by Stephanie Flanders

BBC News
September 6, 2012

Bad news: the next stage of the never-ending saga that is the eurozone crisis could depend on some arcane bits of monetary policy and some not very attractive words.

Mario Draghi will stand up this afternoon to explain how the European Central Bank's governing council has decided to back up his pledge to "do whatever it takes, within our mandate" to hold the single currency together.

Even more than usual, the markets will be focusing on the exact wording - and listening out for some key phrases, some of which are easier to understand than others.

When it comes to the ECB buying the debt of sovereign governments such as Spain, there are three pieces of terminology that matter today.

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Competitiveness Gap Widening in Europe, Study Finds

New York Times
September 5, 2012

European economies are diverging in competitiveness, according to a report published Wednesday that highlighted a growing north-south divide as one of the factors at the heart of the continuing euro zone crisis.

The annual rankings of 144 nations, published by the World Economic Forum, show a vast difference between the best- and worst-performing nations in the 17-nation single currency area, with Finland taking third place and Greece languishing in the 96th spot — the lowest in the European Union.

Switzerland, which is not a part of the European Union, takes top place in the global table, with Singapore second, the United States occupying 7th position — down two places from last year — and Canada at 14th. China, in 29th place, is rated the most competitive among large emerging markets.

The survey comes during a crucial period for the euro zone, with the European Central Bank’s governing council due to meet Thursday and intensive discussions under way among European leaders both about Greece and about broader efforts to stem the debilitating debt crisis.

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Mario Draghi’s Big Moment, Continued

Bloomberg
Editorial
September 6, 2012

Europe emerges from its summer torpor with untapped disasters in waiting.

On Thursday, attention turns to Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, and the plans, if any, he will announce to help manage the European Union’s financial crisis. Next, on Sept. 12, Germany’s constitutional court will rule on the legality of the European Stability Mechanism, the euro area’s new permanent bailout fund, and the fiscal pact that curbs government deficits. If either event goes badly, watch out.

In July, Draghi aroused expectations that he has so far been unable to meet when he promised the ECB would do “whatever it takes” to defend the euro system. This was seen as a pledge of unlimited bond buying aimed at lowering the long-term interest rates that Spain, Italy and other distressed sovereign borrowers must pay.

We have been recommending such a course for months. But it turned out Draghi’s promise was less a binding commitment to the markets than an attempt to nudge dissenters on the ECB’s governing council -- notably, Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann, who opposes an unorthodox bond-buying program on principle -- to fall into line. They didn’t.

Thursday will show whether Draghi has finally reached agreement with the dissenters, so that some kind of compromise effort can proceed, or whether he has to play for time yet again.

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ECB holds back from bond yield cap

Financial Times
September 5, 2012

The European Central Bank will refrain from publishing any formal cap on bond yields when it announces a new plan to buy distressed eurozone sovereign debt at its governing council meeting on Thursday, two people familiar with the matter said.

The programme, dubbed “monetary outright transactions” in internal ECB discussion papers, was first outlined last month by Mario Draghi, the bank’s president, and – after fierce debate over its merits – is set to be revealed in detail following the meeting of the bank’s executive board and the 17 heads of eurozone central banks.

It has met with open opposition from the German Bundesbank, the guardian of the doctrine that central banks should focus solely on price stability. The leaders of France, Spain and Italy have by contrast lobbied hard in favour and they were joined on Wednesday by leading business groups from those three countries and Germany, who called for “decisive actions” from European institutions including the ECB and governments.

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