The euro's real trouble

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by Charlemagne          (the economist ) http://www.economist.com/node/18959279

      The crisis of the single currency is political as much as financial

ANYONE struggling to understand why Europe has proved incapable of putting an end to the euro’s crisis might find answers in a bad-tempered dinner at a summit on October 28th 2010. The argument was over a demand by the leaders of Germany and France, made days earlier at Deauville, for a treaty change to create a permanent system to rescue countries unable to pay their debts. Everyone groaned. It had taken years of tribulation to agree on the European Union’s Lisbon treaty, which had only recently come into effect. But they bowed to Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, who wanted to prevent any challenge to the new system by Germany’s constitutional court.


However, Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank (ECB), worried about something else: her demand that future bail-outs must include “adequate participation of private creditors”, meaning losses for bondholders. That could only alarm the markets, he thought, still jittery after the Greek crisis in the spring. “You don’t realise the gravity of the situation…” began Mr Trichet. But he was cut off by the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who interjected, one Frenchman to another: “Perhaps you speak to bankers. We, we are answerable to our citizens.” Mrs Merkel chimed in: taxpayers could not be asked to foot the whole bill, not when they had just paid to save the banks.

The politicians won the day. But Mr Trichet’s worries have also been vindicated, as contagion has spread and is now engulfing Italy (see article). The dinner-table row illustrates how, throughout the sovereign-debt crisis, the requirements of financial crisis-management have collided with political, legal and emotional priorities. Indeed, the euro’s woes are as much about politics as about finance. European officials such as Mr Trichet parrot that the euro zone’s overall debt and deficit are sounder than America’s. Yet Europe lacks the big federal budgets and financial institutions to redistribute income and absorb economic shocks. And it has no single polity to mediate tensions within and between member countries. It is hard enough to get Californians to save Wall Street bankers; no wonder Germans bristle when they are asked to rescue Greek bureaucrats.

But Europe’s politicians cannot blame everything on their lack of tools. Their inconsistency, even incoherence, over getting creditors to pay has done much to spread contagion. Their first emergency loans imposed tough conditions on Greece, but none on the bankers. Indeed, the creation of a big bail-out fund was meant to make default unthinkable. At Deauville, though, Mrs Merkel and Mr Sarkozy wanted default to become a possibility: current debt would be safe, they said, but leaders later agreed that from 2013 countries should issue new types of bonds that could be more easily forced to take a hit if a country ran into trouble. Now Greece needs another rescue, default is nearer and the Germans and Dutch, threatening to stand in the way, want private creditors to contribute right away. This has led to an open dispute with Mr Trichet, who says even the mildest of debt rescheduling risks an upheaval comparable to the collapse of Lehman Brothers; he has threatened, if there is any sort of default, to cut off credit to Greek banks—pushing many into bankruptcy. Is it any surprise that investors are fleeing vulnerable euro-zone bonds?


To cap it all, in talks with Greece’s creditors euro-zone countries have spent the past few weeks pursuing contradictory aims. At the behest of Berlin and The Hague, they sought a “substantial” contribution by bondholders, but to satisfy the ECB in Frankfurt, this would have to be “voluntary”—as if someone would willingly take a large loss when a smaller one is on offer. Finance ministers in Brussels this week more or less accepted a “selective default”, so long as it is short-lived (no longer than a few days) and does not trigger a payout on credit-default swaps (a form of insurance against default). To ease the burden on Greece, ministers seem ready to lend it money to buy back existing bonds, and to lower the interest rate they charge on loans.

This deal may not come cheap. Depending on the degree of coercion, private creditors will give up at most

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关键词：trouble euro Real The Contribution The trouble Real euro

very good artical !这里提供下翻译，来自于jinqu1 ，一起分享！
ANYONE struggling to understand why Europe has proved incapable of putting an end to the euro’s crisis might find answers in a bad-tempered dinner at a summit on October 28th 2010. The argument was over a demand by the leaders of Germany and France, made days earlier at Deauville, for a treaty change to create a permanent system to rescue countries unable to pay their debts. Everyone groaned. It had taken years of tribulation to agree on the European Union’s Lisbon treaty, which had only recently come into effect. But they bowed to Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, who wanted to prevent any challenge to the new system by Germany’s constitutional court.
任何很难理解为什么欧洲无力结束欧元区危机的人，也许能在2010年10月28日一次峰会的心情恶劣的晚宴上得到答案。在早些时候，法德两国领导人在多维尔（法国北部海滨城市，译者注）要求对里斯本条约进行更改，从而创造一个永久机制来援助那些无力偿还债务的国家，而争论正是基于这一要求产生的。每个人都在抱怨：欧盟里斯本条约历经数年艰苦终于达成，最近才开始生效。但是他们却屈从于德国总理安吉拉·默克尔（AngelaMerkel），她不想这个机制受到德国年代宪法法院的任何挑战。

However, Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank (ECB), worried about something else: her demand that future bail-outs must include “adequate participation of private creditors”, meaning losses for bondholders. That could only alarm themarkets, he thought, still jittery after the Greek crisis in the spring. “You don’t realise the gravity of the situation…” began Mr Trichet. But he was cut off by the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who interjected, one Frenchman to another: “Perhaps you speak to bankers. We, we are answerable to our citizens.”Mrs Merkel chimed in: taxpayers could not be asked to foot the whole bill, not when they had just paid to save the banks.
然而欧洲央行行长克洛德·特里谢（Jean-ClaudeTrichet）担心的却是另外的事情：她要求未来的援助计划必须包括“私人债权人的适度参与”，意味着债券持有者遭受损失。去年春天希腊主权债务危机之后，市场仍处于敏感状态，他认为，这一做法仅仅为市场敲响警钟。“你们不会认识到事态的严重性……”特里谢开头说道。但是他就被另外一个法国人打断，法国总统尼古拉斯·萨科齐（NicolasSarkozy）插道：“或许你指的是银行家们。我们，我们是在为我们的国民负责。”默克尔也插话：当纳税人只需要支付用来帮助银行的钱时，他们不能被要求来支付整个账单。

The politicians won the day. But Mr Trichet’s worries have also been vindicated, as contagion has spread and is now engulfing Italy.The dinner-table row illustrates how, throughout the sovereign-debt crisis, the requirements of financial crisis-management have collided with political, legal and emotional priorities. Indeed, the euro’s woes are as much about politics as about finance. European officials such as Mr Trichet parrot that the euro zone’s overall debt and deficit are sounder than America’s. Yet Europe lacks the big federal budgets and financial institutions to redistribute incomeand absorb economic shocks. And it has no single polity to mediate tensions within and between member countries. It is hard enough to get Californians to save Wall Street bankers; no wonder Germans bristle when they are asked to rescue Greek bureaucrats.

政治家取得了上风。但是随着主权债务危机的蔓延，并逐渐吞噬着意大利，特里谢的担忧得到了证实。晚宴上的争吵表明了财务危机管理的要求是如何与政治、法律和情感优先相冲突的，这种冲突贯穿于主权债务危机始终。其实，欧元的灾难关乎经济，也关乎政治。欧洲官员，如特里谢，不断重复指出，欧元区的整个债务和赤字要比美国安全的多。然而，欧洲缺乏足够大的联邦预算和金融机构来进行收入再分配和承受经济动荡。同时，它也没有一个单一政治组织来调解成员国之间的紧张关系。让加利福尼亚人去挽救华尔街的银行家会异常艰难；当德国被要求救助希腊ZF的时候，德国民众出离愤怒也显得不足为奇。

But Europe’s politicians cannot blame everything on their lack of tools. Their inconsistency, even incoherence, over getting creditors to pay has done much to spread contagion. Their first emergency loans imposed tough conditions on Greece, but none on the bankers. Indeed, the creation of a big bail-out fund was meant to make default unthinkable. At Deauville,though, Mrs Merkel and Mr Sarkozy wanted default to become a possibility:current debt would be safe, they said, but leaders later agreed that from 2013 countries should issue new types of bonds that could be more easily forced to take a hit if acountry ran into trouble. Now Greece needs another rescue, default is nearer and the Germans and Dutch, threatening to stand in the way, want private creditors to contribute right away. This has led to an open dispute with Mr Trichet, who says even the mildest of debt rescheduling risks an upheaval comparable to the collapse of Lehman Brothers;he has threatened, if there is any sort of default, to cut off credit to Greekbanks—pushing many into bankruptcy. Is it any surprise that investors are fleeing vulnerable euro-zone bonds?

但是，这些欧洲政客们不能把所有的责任都归结在工具的缺乏上。他们在是债权人支付这一问题上的不一致，甚至不连贯，很大程度上造成了主权债务危机的蔓延。他们的第一轮紧急贷款对希腊ZF实施了严厉的条件，但对银行家们却没有。事实上，大型救援资金的建立本试图使得信用违约变得不再可能。然而，在多维尔，默克尔和萨科齐希望信用违约成为一种可能：这样短期债务将会变得安全，他们说。但是，不久后领导们就打成了一个协议：从2013年起，各国将发行新型的债权，如果一个国家陷入危机，这些债权会更可能迫使其受到影响。现在，希腊需要再一次的救援，信用违约可能加大。德国和荷兰威胁会会阻碍救援，希望私人债权人即刻做出贡献。这使其与特里谢的争论明朗化，特里谢曾说，与雷曼兄弟破产的情况类似，即使是最温和的债务延期也会有带来巨变的风险。特里谢威胁道，如果出现任何一种信用违约，他都将会停止向希腊银行放贷——许多银行从而破产。投资者们正在逃离脆弱的欧元区债权，这值得大惊小怪么？

To cap it all, in talks with Greece’s creditors euro-zone countries have spent the past few weeks pursuing
contradictory aims. At the behest of Berlinand The Hague, they sought a “substantial”contribution by bondholders, but to satisfy the ECB in Frankfurt,this would have to be “voluntary”—as if someone would willingly take a large loss when a smaller one is on offer. Finance ministers in Brussels this weekmore or less accepted a “selective default”, so long as it is short-lived (no longer than a few days) and does not trigger a payout on credit-default swaps(a form of insurance against default). To ease the burden on Greece,ministers seem ready to lend it money to buy back existing bonds, and to lower the interest rate they charge on loans.

更有甚者，在于希腊债权人的谈话中，欧元区国家花费了数周时间来追求截然相反的目标。在柏林和海牙的联合施压下，他们寻求债券持有者做出“重大的”贡献，但是为了是位于法兰克福的欧洲央行满意，这将不得不是一个志愿的选择——好似当他们可以选择一个更小的损失时，他们却自愿选择一个更大的损失。本周在布鲁塞尔，财政部长们基本接受了“可选择性违约”，条件是这种违约不会太长（不超过几天）并且不会激发“信用违约掉期”（一种预防违约的保险形式）大笔的支出。为了缓解希腊的负担，部长们已经准备好给希腊贷款来买回流通的债券，并降低了贷款利率

This deal may not come cheap. Depending on the degree of coercion, private creditors will give up at most 30 billion ($43billion) for Greece’s financing needs to 2014. But officials say that merely to lower Greece’s debt-to-GDP ratio to that of heavily indebted Italy,the unofficial goal, would require a sum several times bigger. Ireland and Portugal may need similar treatment.

这一协议代价不菲。依据强制的力度，为了满足希腊的融资需求，至2014年私人债权人将至多放弃300亿欧元（430亿美元）。但是有官员表示：非官方的目标，即仅仅将希腊的债务-GDP比率降低到与严重负债的意大利相同的水平，也需要总额比上述多大几倍的资金。

Think bigger and bolder

更大、更勇敢地思考

There are good reasons to make the privatesector pay. Taxpayers should not bear the whole cost of bondholders’ losses—after all, investors received higher returns for their risk-taking (if not high enough). But the present policy brings the worst of both worlds: too little money from creditors to make a big difference to Greece, too much turmoil to make the effort worthwhile.

有一些好的理由让私营部门来支付。纳税人不应该承担债券持有人的所有损失——毕竟，投资者承担风险（如果风险不够高）
来获取更高的收益。但是，目前的政策带来了最糟糕的两种情况：来自于债权人的资金太少，不足以对希腊做出大的改变；混乱太多，使得所作出的努力没有取得好的效果。

It is time to think differently. If there is to be a default, then it might as well be a big one, with a large haircut on creditors that gives Greece relief and a greater chance of recovery. Even then, Greece will need help for years to come. And some banks will have to be recapitalised. One useful means of allaying the panic might be for euro-zone countries to issue part of their debtas joint bonds. Jointly guaranteed bonds sold to raise money for the current bail-out funds are being eagerly snapped up by investors.

现在是换个角度思考的时候了。如果将有信用违约出现，那么也许它的规模会很大。随之而来的便是债权人权益的大幅削减，从而减轻了希腊的负担，给予更大的机会来复兴。即使那样，在未来的几年希腊仍需援助。一些银行也不得不进行资产重组。对于欧元区国家来说，一种可能缓解恐慌的有效途径是将他们部分的债务以联合债券的形式来发行。被担保的联合债券被用来为现在的救市计划资金筹资金，这种债券正被投资做急切的抢购中。

This may make financial sense. But the near-insurmountable obstacle is, as always, political: there is huge resistance to what would become a more overt “transfer union”. In a group of democracies, where big decisions are taken by unanimity, consensus is hard to come by and takes time. Hence, leaders have acted only in the face of impending disaster, and then with half-measures. Markets operate on a faster timetable. They will not wait for Europe’s leaders, like Churchill’sAmericans, to do the right thing after having exhausted all the alternatives.

上述此举或许有经济意义。但是和以往一样，政治因素是几乎不可跨越的障碍：一个更加公然的“过渡期联盟”遭到了强烈的反对。在民主整体组成的团体中，重大决议需达成一致才能通过，但是一致很难达成并且费时费力。因此，领导人们只有在面对即将爆发的危机时才行动起来，然后采取权宜之计。市场会更快地做出反应。他们不会等待欧洲的领导人们，就像丘吉尔时代的美国人，在用尽所有方案之后才去采用正确的方式。