Germany is preparing for Greek bankruptcy

The mood in Germany is still about cutting Greece loose to save Italy and Spain. My translation of an excerpt of a German-language article from Spiegel is below (Update 12 Sep – the official translation is now here):

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) is preparing for a bankruptcy in Greece, according to to SPIEGEL sources. Finance ministry officials are playing through all the scenarios which could arise in the event of a default in the country. There are basically two variations of a Greek bust. In the first, the country remains inside the monetary union. In the other, it leaves the Euro currency, and reinstitutes the drachma again. The EFSF, the European rescue fund, plays a key role in the deliberations. It must be be equipped with the new powers which were agreed at the crisis summit in late July as soon as possible.

Two mechanisms are taking center stage in Germany’s deliberations: First, Schäuble’s officials are focused on preventive credit lines aimed at helping countries like Spain or Italy, if investors refuse to lend to them borrow following a Greek insolvency. Banks in many countries in the euro zone could also become dependent on billions from the rescue fund, because they would have to write off their holdings of Greek government bonds. Such consequences can be expected, regardless of whether Greece stays in the euro zone or leaves.

The article goes on to mention that Greece’s Finance Minister has recently announced that the economy is expected to contract by a full 5% instead of 3.8% as assumed during the previous rounds of bailout negotiation. The budget deficit target cannot be met in that case. So clearly, the Germans are now forced to face the prospect of default in Greece.

There are two schools of thought about a Greek default concerning Spain and Italy. Portugal and Ireland are separate less systemic issues. In the one school, contagion increases and Spain and Italy come under pressure. The Germans are making preparations for this eventuality. In the second school of thought, a Greek default lessens pressure on Greece and Italy as Greece is seen as “a special case”.

For example, the Spanish daily El Pais writes (my translation):

The countries of the euro zone breached the deficit limit (3% of GDP) and debt limit (60%) established by the Maastricht Treaty on 137 occasions between 2000 and 2010, according to Eurostat. Germany, the country that now stands as a champion of fiscal discipline, and France exceeded these limits 14 times each, while Spain and Ireland, did so only 4 to 5 times respectively – and never before the recent crisis. The best students were Finland, Luxembourg and Estonia which always complied with the rules.

Greece, however, violated both the deficit and debt limit every year. Also exceeding the maximum public debt limit in the eleven years analyzed by Eurostat (see accompanying table)were Italy, Belgium and Austria. The criterion which limits public deficits to a maximum of 3% was exceeded on 60 occasions. The deficit ceiling is the main criteria agreed in the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), established in 1997. The SGP was the instrument designed to monitor public finances of the euro zone countries to compensate for the lack of fiscal policy in the euro zone layout.

The primary insinuation of the article is that the Germans are hypocrites in that they were in violation of the SGP repeatedly before the crisis and now they are acting as if they are the paragons of fiscal virtue. This is something I discussed in detail in my May 2010 article “Spain is the perfect example of a country that never should have joined the euro zone.” But the undertone here is also about Greece being a special case, a debtor that was repeatedly in violation of the stability and growth pact which deserves to be treated differently. And, yes, in Germany and the Netherlands, there is a lot more sympathy for Ireland which kept budget discipline pre-crisis and has attempted to take on austerity with zeal post-crisis.

Nevertheless, the question about contagion really hinges on the ECB at this point. The EFSF is too small to deal with either Spain or Italy effectively while they attempt to get back under the 3% hurdle and their bond spreads remain extra-wide. And the ECB is an unreliable provider of liquidity. The resignation of ECB chief economist Juergen Stark tells us that. When I say “the euro zone is coming apart at the seams now”, I mean that political cohesion is all but gone. The policy outlook is extremely volatile as major policy makers in the EU, in member states, and at the ECB have extremely discordant policy messages. Some like the Dutch Prime Minister are openly talking of how to break up the euro.

Let’s go further and talk about ‘openness’ in the context of rising economic nationalism and a double dip recession which strains the fiscal rectitutde of all euro member states. Europe is going to become more conservative, more nationalistic and more xenophobic on European-wide issues like free trade, open borders, and free labour movement. The same is true in the US. As I said in April:

Again, I do appreciate a well-argued case that this is not what is likely to happen. But unless we see a multi-year recovery economy in which the nagging debt and default issues are entirely removed, economic nationalism will return with a vengeance.

In my view that means that the European experiment will be under great stress. The Spanish and the Portuguese or the Irish and the British or the Germans and the Dutch would then feel an affinity for each other that the Greeks and the Germans or the Finnish and the Spanish might not.

What does that mean for policy? It means unilateralism. You see the Danes putting up restrictions on the Schengen agreement. You see the Dutch PM talking about tossing out member countries from the euro zone. And you see lots of western Europeans talking about the ‘coming wave’ of immigration from Bulgaria and Romania with dread.

In a deep downturn, these tensions will boil over and the cohesion cannot last. It’s pure speculation how far the anti-openness wave will proceed. But the minimum I expect is at least 1 or 2 members leaving the eurozone, restrictions on Romanian and Bulgarian workers, and a few more dissenters to Schengen.

Sources

17 Comments
  1. Panayotis Economopoulos says

    Cutting loose or freeing ourselves from German chains?

    1. Bill says

      You cant blame the Germans for anything except for a bad business investment in Greece.

  2. Coldcall says

    What is interesting are all the papers coming out arguing that Greek default and return to drachma would be “horrific” or some other suitably scary adjective.

    My bet is that in the event of Greece exiting the euro and devaluing like nutters they will end up in better shape 2 years down the road than Italy, Spain, Portugal etc..hence the taboo of exiting will have been broken and may even appear more palatable to the effected populations.

    I think this is the big worry at the EU level about allowing a Greek default, more so than the relatively small damage it will do to German and French banks. They can be re-capitalised but once the precendent for exiting emu is set, eurozone credibility is gone forever.

    1. Edward Harrison says

      If you think of the euro as gold and the euro zone countries as complying with the gold standard, the events of the Great Depression say that leaving the gold standard – at least temporarily – and devaluation really help an economy.

      The problem for Greece is currency sovereignty; all of its debts and transactions are denominated in euros. It is as if Britain had decided to use gold to transact and as the currency to sell bonds.

      We all realise that it was the gold and foreign currency obligations which caused the German hyperinflation episode in the 1920s. Luckily for the Greeks, Greece can repudiate all of the sovereign debt obligations. So there would be no hyperinflation. But the private sector and banking ones in euros would remain and that mans deflation and depression.

      1. Coldcall says

        Thanks for the interesting info re: the great depression. Of course Greece is in a deflationary depression at the moment, 5% contraction for 2011, looks like a depression to me.

        So i think they’d still be better off exiting the euro.

        Also one has to remember the banks writing the white papers on the supposed “disaster” of a Greek default and euro exit, are the same ones who have most to gain as long as Greece is propped up.

        There also another interesting issue cropping up now which is the huge waste of temporary bailouts Greece has received while waiting for the inevitable default. It’s really quite perverse that the EU and IMF can so casually throw billions in tax payer funds down the drain.

    2. ErnestJack says

      Coldcall,

      From the Greek point of view, defaulting is really the only way forward. I know of no country that sold its sovereign terrains or assets to pay back foreign creditos, except at gunpoint. So the choice for Greece is indeed clear. Better to default and maintain assets for future growth. No one really doubts this.

      The issue is what is Europe going to do about it. The question becomes not how costly is it for Greece to exit, but how costly would it be for the EU. We all know by now who owns the greek bonds, but as Ed pointed out, a sovereign default would lead to bank and corporate defaults in Greece. This would lead to more losses in EU, immediate contagion acceleration to Portugal and possible Ireland. Certainly there is a great risk of bank runs in Spain and Italy.

      So the question, like in the US in 2008, does Europe bailout (and i mean outright forgiving in the great Moral Hazard sense) of Greek debt to save the Eurozone and quite possibly the Euro. Thats the issue. Europe could easily take a 50% Haircut on Greek debt and move on. It should in exchange receive Greek fiscal control ahead on other EU members. This is a real possible way forward and should not be forgotten. It would be worth the Moral Hazzard if you gained quick Greek compliance into the future of EU fiscal union.

      Why this isnt being accepted defies logic to me as Greece defaulting would be worse pain all around than outright debt forgiveness. The US did this in spades during its crisis with nationalization of Freddie and Fannie, AIG bailouts, etc. I hope Europe at least gets a better trade on such a move by forcing Greece to hand over its fiscal reigns.

  3. Bob Morris says
    1. Edward Harrison says

      Thanks for that, Bob.

  4. Panayotis Economopoulos says

    The private debt in Greece is around 100% of GDP, much less than most other European economies! Furthermore, as Ed sais correctly most public debt is in euros and that portion in private hands is issued under Greek law and therefore, the denomination can change into drachmas while the Troika debt under international law that represents a difficulty in converting it but Greece can repudiate it as onerous and abusive to a population in poverty!

    1. David Lazarus says

      To be honest i am surprised that declaring the debt as onerous and juts writing it off has not already been done. I suspect that the US government have been lobbying hard to avoid that outcome as it would set a precedent for future sovereign crises.

  5. Clord says

    There are certain truths that are undeniable, no matter how upposed ideologically you are to the adherance of these basic principals. The first and most important is. You can not keep spending money you have not collected without any ramifications in the future. Second, you can not keep creating obligations without an eventual default on those obligations.

  6. Bill says

    I am curious what everyone thinks is the financial impact that Greece as well as Ireland, and Italy will have on the US financial markets? I am long Gold, out of equities and treasuries with all my cash in Canadian banks. Wondering what steps you all are taking for protection and or profit?

  7. TOM BOUTZIS says

    i have backed Greece to default with Ladbrokes. it is as a good thing as the sun rising tomorrow..

Comments are closed.

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