ECB prepares legal ground for euro rupture as Greek crisis escalates
Fears of a euro break-up have reached the point where the European
Central Bank feels compelled to issue a legal analysis of what would
happen if a country tried to leave monetary union.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Published: 5:12PM GMT 17 Jan 2010
âRecent developments have, perhaps, increased the risk of secession
(however modestly), as well as the urgency of addressing it as a
possible scenario,â said the document, entitled Withdrawal and
expulsion from the EU and EMU: some reflections.
The author makes a string of vaulting, Jesuitical, and mischievous
claims, as EU lawyers often do. Half a century of ever-closer union
has created a ânew legal orderâ that transcends a âlargely obsolete
concept of sovereigntyâ and imposes a âpermanent limitationâ on the
statesâ rights.
Those who suspect that European Court has the power pretensions of the
Medieval Papacy will find plenty to validate their fears in this
astonishing text.
Crucially, he argues that eurozone exit entails expulsion from the
European Union as well. All EU members must take part in EMU (except
Britain and Denmark, with opt-outs).
This is a warning shot for Greece, Portugal, Ireland and Spain. If
they fail to marshal public support for draconian austerity, they risk
being cast into Icelandic oblivion. Or for Greece, back into the
clammy embrace of Asia Minor.
ECB chief Jean-Claude Trichet upped the ante, warning that the bank
would not bend its collateral rules to support Greek debt. âNo state
can expect any special treatment,â he said. He might as well daub a
deathâs cross on the door of Greeceâs debt management office.
This euro-brinkmanship must be unnerving for the Hellenic Socialists
(PASOK). Last weekâs â¬1.6bn (£1.4bn) auction of Greek debt did not go
well. The interest rate on six-month notes rose to 1.38pc, compared to
0.59pc a month ago. The yield on 10-year bonds has touched 6pc, the
spreads ballooning to 270 basis points above German Bunds.
Greece cannot afford such a premium for long. The country must raise
â¬54bn this year â front-loaded in the first half. Unless the spreads
fall sharply, the deficit cannot be cut from 12.7pc of GDP to 3pc of
GDP within three years. As Moodyâs put it, Greece (and Portugal) faces
the risk of âslow deathâ from rising interest costs.
Stephen Jen from BlueGold Capital said the design flaws of monetary
union are becoming clearer. âI donât believe Euroland will break up:
too much political capital has been spent in the past half century for
Euroland to allow an outright breakage. However, severe
'stress-fracturesâ are quite likely in the years ahead.â
As Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain (PIIGS) slide into
deflation, their ârealâ interest rates will rise even higher. âIt is
tantamount to hiking rates in the already weak PIIGS,â he said. This
is the crux. ECB policy will become âpro-cyclicalâ, too tight for the
South, too loose for the North.
The City view is that the North-South split may cause trouble, but
that there will always be a bail-out to prevent a domino effect. âIf a
rescue turns out to be necessary, a rescue will be mounted,â said
Marco Annunziata from Unicredit.
It comes down to a bet that Berlin will do for Club Med what it did
for East Germany: subsidise forever. It is a judgement on whether EMU
is the binding coin of sacred solidarity, or just a fixed exchange
rate system like others before it.
Politics will decide, and in Greece it is already proving messy as
teams of âinspectorsâ ruffle feathers. The Orthodox LAOS party is not
happy that an EU crew dared to demand an accounting from the colonels.
âThe Ministry of Defence is sacrosanct,â it said.
Greece alone in Western Europe treats the military budget as a state
secret. Rating agencies guess it is a ruinous 5pc of GDP. Does the
country really need 1,700 battle tanks, 420 combat jets, and eight
submarines? To fight NATO ally Turkey? Merely to pose the question is
to enter dangerous waters.
Who knows what the IMF surveillance team made of their mission in
Athens. The Fundâs formula for boom-bust countries that squander their
competitiveness is to retrench AND devalue. But devaluation is ruled
out. Greece must take the pain, without the cure.
The policy is conceptually foolish and arguably cynical. It is to
bleed a society in order to uphold the ideology of the European
Project. Greeceâs national debt will be 120pc of GDP this year. S&P
says it will reach 138pc by 2012. A fiscal squeeze â without any
offsetting monetary or exchange stimulus â will cause tax revenues to
collapse. Debt will rise higher on a shrinking economic base.
Even if Greece can cut wages without setting off mass protest, it
lacks the open economy and export sector that may yet save Ireland in
similar circumstances. Greece is caught in a textbook deflation trap.
Labour minister Andreas Loverdos says unemployment would reach a
million this year â or 22pc, equal to 30m in the US. He broadcast the
fact with a hint of menace, as if he wanted Europe to squirm. Two can
play brinkmanship.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...r-euro-rupture-as-Greek-crisis-escalates.html