Na margo pomoci Grécku zo strany krajín Eurozóny
Juraj Karpiš z INESS pre The Slovak Spectator dňa 10.5. 2010 uvideol, že za
lepšie riešenie by považoval, keby EU nechala tento prípad na MMF, ktorý má na
takýto proces potrebné štruktúry a skúsenosti. Navyše by sa to obišlo bez
národnostných vášní, ktoré pôžičky z jednej EMU krajiny do druhej vyvolávajú.
THERE are some serious fiscal responsibility lessons that
Slovakia might learn from the unfolding Greek tragedy, say Slovak economists,
though their opinions might be overshadowed by the contentious domestic political
discourse about the country’s participation in the €110 billion loan programme
for Greece – currently paralysed by strikes and social unrest.
Slovakia’s share in the loan provided by the European Union
and the International Monetary Fund will come to €800 million.
Economists and other market watchers suggest that Greece is
not the only country being forced to cut its state budget during a period of
stagnation or feeble economic growth – even though macro-economic theories
suggest that it is during these slow-growth periods that economies can benefit
from more expansive fiscal policies.
“However, these theories of budget deficits serving as a
stabilising contributor in times of economic hardship assume that countries
pursue a much more responsible fiscal policy during times of expansion in order
to decrease their public debt levels and to have the ‘credit card limit of
deficit finance’ available when a less favourable phase of the economic cycle
kicks in,” Vladimír Vaňo, chief analyst with Volksbank, told The Slovak
Spectator.
As to what threat the current situation in Greece poses to
the eurozone, Vaňo suggests that a single member state’s fiscal trouble on this
scale – the interest rates being demanded for loans to Greece far exceed those
for any other developed European country – and speculation about a possible
default or exit from the European monetary union have cast doubt on the
credibility of the entire system.
“It is clearly not in the interest of the eurozone countries
to undermine the credibility of the second most important world reserve
currency,” Vaňo said.
For Vaňo, one of the major lessons not only for Slovakia,
but also for other European countries, is that running fiscal deficits during
years of economic expansion is playing with fire, something which can run out
of control and lead to a painful debt trap during a downturn later in the
economic cycle.
“The major lesson from Greece is that the 3 percent of GDP
permissible deficit rule was meant for times of hardship, not to pass deficit-generating
budgets regardless of economic expansion,” Vaňo said. “Not only Greece, but
many other European nations find themselves in the paradoxical situation of
being forced into tightening their budgets in this period of economic slowdown
or only very mild and moderate growth, when textbook theories of ‘automatic
fiscal stabilisers’ would on the contrary call for looser fiscal policy to
support economic growth.”
Juraj Karpiš, an
analyst with the economic think-tank INESS, said that apart from the obvious
lesson illustrating the results of fiscal irresponsibility, it highlights some
previous warnings about the risks that Slovakia undertook by entering the
monetary union.
“This step, along
with the widely emphasised advantages for Slovakia, also carried risks and
expenses,” Karpiš said. “The contradiction between one [eurozone] monetary
policy and independent national fiscal policies in the political project of the
single European currency brings, via Greece, an unpleasant wake-up from
euro-optimism and the need to somehow address this unresolved tension.”
A second message, according to Vaňo, is that without
conditions for solid, private sector-driven economic growth, neither living
standards nor the public services associated with a welfare state can be maintained.
“Shutting one’s eyes over a lack of economic expansion
driven by competitiveness, innovation and productivity and covering the gap
with the public debt ‘credit card’ is a shortsighted way to run state budgets,”
Vaňo said.
He added that postponing painful, yet unavoidable, decisions
such as public spending cuts does not solve the problem but augments it,
occasionally into proportions which exacerbate the pain to a hardly bearable
degree, as can be seen currently in the social turmoil in Greece. Vaňo said
there are lessons for Slovakia to learn in the Greek tragedy.
Market watchers agree that being negligent in maintaining
vigour in public finances might lead to a situation in which external
circumstances force painful solutions at the worst possible time, for example,
requiring slashes in public spending and increased taxes in times of recession.
“In other words, the message not only for Slovakia, but also
for other European countries is clear: running up debts in good times might
spell major trouble during bad times,” Vaňo told The Slovak Spectator.
Loan is only a palliative
Analysts agree that one of the major outcomes of the
financial assistance for Greece is that the country now has the resources to
refinance its maturing debt outside the private bond markets and thus time to
undertake urgent fiscal reforms and trim its hefty deficit.
“On top of buying time to implement painful reforms, by
applying for international assistance Greece also taps into IMF expertise and
experience in fiscal consolidation; moreover the process is more firmly
mediated by the outside technical experts of the IMF, which leaves less leeway
to the “political will” of Greek politicians who might not always possess the
necessary courage to carry out painful fiscal adjustment measures,” said Vaňo.
Karpiš believes a
better solution would have been for the EU to leave the Greek debt crisis
entirely to the International Monetary Fund which he said has the necessary
experience and structure.
“Moreover, it would
not have been accompanied by the national emotions that accompany loans from
one European Union country to another,” Karpiš told The Slovak Spectator.
Karpiš warned that
this loan is only buying time for Greece and shifts the problems to the future,
adding that the EU is trying to solve the problem with liquidity, despite the
fact that Greece is insolvent.
“I think that Greece
will not be able to avoid restructuring its debt,” Karpiš said.
Are there similar dark clouds, like those in Greece, hanging
over other countries as well? Market watchers say the growing public debt of
many member countries is a shared worry for the whole EU.
“The whole of Europe
is facing problems with increasing public debt and for some countries, such as
Portugal, Spain and Ireland, these problems are really serious,” said Karpiš.
“It is debatable how the EU will act if any of these countries find themselves
in a situation similar to Greece, and whether it can find enough financial
resources and political will for a similar support package.”
The loan’s tortuous path
Vaňo explained that the perception of the severity of
refinancing the Greek public debt escalated to an extreme level in April even
though Greece had been able to refinance maturing debt during March by issuing
new bonds in the financial markets.
“Mounting speculation surrounding the viability of
refinancing the rest of the debt maturing this year, with as much as €8.5
billion coming due on May 19 alone, were initially soothed by the commitment of
the Greek government to cut its budget deficit by four percentage points from
last year’s unsustainable levels of almost 14 percent of GDP,” Vaňo told The
Slovak Spectator. “However, with ongoing instances of social unrest, markets
became wary of Greek politicians‘ ability to push through such sweeping
deficit-cutting reforms.”
At the end of March, Greece was supported by a mutual
commitment from eurozone states who pledged to cover the country’s refinancing
needs in an emergency through bilateral loans from other eurozone members.
“This commitment was necessary to show the capability of the
eurozone to avoid a worst-case scenario that would hurt the credibility of the
entire euro project and which might inflict additional costs on all other
members,” Vaňo noted.
But even after eurozone states had made this commitment to
bankroll Greece in the event of urgent need, market anxiety continued, leading
to pressure to provide a more specific mechanism of mutual assistance, Vaňo
said.
“The March agreement on mutual assistance through bilateral
loans was an ad hoc attempt by eurozone member countries to mimic the
functioning of a federal fiscal authority – without really creating one but
only by agreeing on a scheme of mutual support,” he added.
Vaňo also remarked that in Hungary it was the “stringent
fiscal consolidation agreed upon in the October 2008 rescue package with IMF
which on one side made Hungary a front runner in fiscal consolidation last
year, but at the same time eroded political support for the governing socialists,
who were at the helm when the IMF requirements were carried out.”
According to Vaňo, Hungary did not avoid anti-government
rallies either but that the strong guidance by the IMF made the implementation
of Hungary’s fiscal consolidation plan more viable. He said he expects that
Greece is about to go through a process similar to Hungary’s, only on a
relatively larger scale.
The
Slovak Spectator, 10 May 2010 Beata
Balogová
