– Sta svanendo l’impegno della Germania per l’euro, che rimarrà solo alle condizioni da essa poste, ma questo porrà problemi.
– Mentre la Cancelliera Merkel chiede “più Europa”- cioè l’unione bancaria e più stretta integrazione fiscale e politica
– la richiesta del ministro Finanze tedesco Schäuble della revisione dei trattati UE come precondizione all’Unione bancaria apre nuovi dubbi sulla reale volontà della Germania di impegnarsi per il mantenimento dell’euro.
– La richiesta di revisione dei trattati apre tutta una serie di problemi che porterebbe forti ritardi se non la liquidazione della proposta stessa.
– Non è un caso che la Germania freni l’unione bancaria, in coincidenza con la comparsa di un nuovo partito anti-euro che nelle elezioni del prossimo settembre rischia di erodere il consenso della Merkel.
– Nella riunione dei ministri Finanze UE, Schäuble ha insistito che prima dell’unione bancaria deve essere fatta una revisione dei trattati UE. L’unione bancaria ha senso se ci sono regole per ristrutturazione e smantellamento di banche, e per fare questo occorre cambiare il trattato.
o Se questi compiti devono toccare alla BCE, occorre che sia definita chiaramente in termini giuridici nei trattati la divisione tra la gestione della politica monetaria e la supervisione bancaria.
– Le remore espresse da Schäuble erano già superate dall’approvazione già espressa dai paesi dell’euro, Germania compresa, del ruolo di supervisione bancaria da assegnare alla BCE, a partire dal luglio 2014.
– A dicembre Schäuble aveva usato la minaccia della revisione del trattato per indurre altri paesi a limitare la supervisione BCE alle sole grandi banche.
– Schäuble ha anche dichiarato l’opposizione della Germania ad uno schema di deposito di garanzie ad ampiezza europea, un terzo componente dell’unione bancaria.
– Il commissario UE per il mercato interno, Barnier, ha dichiarato al tedesco Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) che intende proporre che il salvataggio statale di banche sia per il futuro solo l’ultima risorsa, dopo aver spazzato via azionisti, obbligazionisti e se necessario i risparmi oltre i 100 000, proposta che SZ ritiene possa essere ben accolta dal governo tedesco.
David Marsh, MarketWatch
– La crescente tensione politica ed economica nell’area euro spinge la Cancelliera tedesca a politiche più rigide sulla moneta unica,
o mentre molti filo-euro chiedono alla Germania maggiore flessibilità per salvare l’Europa da un’altra crisi monetaria.
– Il nuovo partito tedesco anti-euro, Alternativa per la Germania (AfD), intende partecipare alle elezioni politiche di settembre; a poche settimane dalla sua fondazione conterebbe già 7000 iscritti;
– AfD propone il graduale abbandono dell’euro da sostituire con le monete nazionali, o con blocchi regionali più piccoli, con l’euro moneta comune o parallela, che riecheggia il piano britannico del 1990.
– I media prestano attenzione al nuovo partito perché va a rafforzare la posizione del presidente Bundesbank, Jens Weidemann,
o che ha sempre sostenuto la linea dura contro i salvataggi di stato, ed è contro il programma di transazioni monetarie proposto dalla BCE nell’estate 2012 per l’acquisto di titoli di stato dei paesi in difficoltà, e che deve ancora essere attuato.
– Nei sondaggi la Merkel è ancora molto in testa.
– La coalizione CDU/CSU è salita nei sondaggi al 41%, probabilmente grazie alla posizione dura sul salvataggio delle banche cipriote, che devono essere aiutate dai depositi, e non dai contribuenti europei.
– Sembra improbabile che AfD possa raggiungere il 5%, ma se esso si prende più voti da destra e sinistra, anche solo con il 3-4% potrebbe minacciare la maggioranza parlamentare della Merkel, dato che il suo partner di coalizione, l’FDP, potrebbe non riuscire a entrare in parlamento.
– Secondo Stürmer, eminente storico tedesco e membro del comitato consultivo delle Official Monetary and Financial Institutions, l’AfD disturberà ma non cambierà la partita.
– L’apparato dell’AfD è costituito da gente normale, compresa una quota di giovani donne, che potrebbe trovare un consenso popolare.
– Il leader dell’AfD Lucke, è un plurilaureato professore di economia, per 33 anni membro CDU, inizialmente favorevole all’euro, è diventato contrario tre anni fa’, con il salvataggio della Grecia;
– chiede la fine dei pacchetti di salvataggio per i paesi dell’euro, il calo dei salari reali richiesti dall’austerità sta dividendo l’Europa ed è incompatibile con la democrazia.
L’eliminazione dell’euro non comporterebbe per l’Europa un danno di lungo termine.
Germany’s support for the euro wanes
Darrell Delamaide
Commentary: Berlin torpedoes plans for joint banking union[e]
By Darrell Delamaide
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaueble effectively torpedoed Europe’s plan for joint banking supervision over the weekend, raising further doubts about Germany’s commitment to the euro (ICAPC:EURUSD) .
– While Chancellor Angela Merkel has called for “more Europe” — the banking union[e] as well as closer fiscal and political integration — her hatchet man Schaueble systematically obstructs progress toward these goals.
– At the end of the European Union[e] finance ministers meeting in Dublin this weekend, Schaueble insisted that a revision of the EU treaties would be necessary to proceed with the banking union[e], which officials had previously agreed was absolutely essential to underpinning the common currency.
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble effectively torpedoed the European Union[e]’s plans for a joint banking union[e], an essential element in keeping the euro together.
– “Banking union[e] only makes sense … if we also have rules for restructuring and resolving banks,” Schaueble said. “But if we want European institutions for that, we will need a treaty change.”
– Calling for an EU treaty revision opens a political can of worms that at the very least entails considerable delay and often kills proposals altogether.
– Schaueble’s ostensible concern is that a European institution with the authority to dismantle or dissolve banks must have a sound legal basis. If that institution is to be the European Central Bank, then there must be a clear legal division, anchored in the treaties, between the conduct of monetary policy and banking supervision.
– This renewed legal concern was a surprise since euro-zone countries, including Germany, have already approved a bank supervisory role for the ECB, due to start in July 2014. Schaueble had used the threat of treaty revision in December to get other countries to limit ECB supervision to just the largest banks.
– However, the news magazine Der Spiegel reported last month that legal experts had advised German lawmakers there was a questionable legal basis for the ECB taking over a supervisory role.
– It is likely no coincidence that Germany is putting the brakes on a banking union[e] just as a new anti-euro party threatens to erode Merkel’s support on the right in September’s national elections. Read more from David Marsh about the threat of the anti-euro party.
– While he was at it, Schaueble this weekend also made a point of saying that Germany was opposed to a third component of banking union[e], a Europe-wide deposit-guarantee scheme.
– This should come as no surprise after Schaueble and other euro-zone finance ministers countenanced the confiscation of guaranteed deposits in Cyprus — a condition that foundered only on opposition from the Cypriot Parliament.
– So, to translate Schaueble’s comments into plain English: “We love the euro, but we’re not prepared to share any more risk for it. We want banking union[e], which we agree is necessary to preserve the euro, but we’re opposed to its essential components.”
– Is all this just electioneering? Or can we detect a subtext in this German foot-dragging? How likely is it that Merkel, if she does win re-election, will reverse course on any of this?
– Answers: No, it’s not just electioneering. Yes, there is a subtext. And it’s very unlikely that Merkel will reverse course. Bottom line: Germany’s commitment to the euro is waning. It will remain only on its terms. The euro will have trouble surviving on these terms.
While Schaueble is just one of 17 finance ministers in the euro zone and one of 27 in the EU, it became clearer than ever after the Dublin meeting that he is the one calling the shots.
– Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutchman who is the titular head of the euro-zone finance ministers, made it clear to reporters that they must toe the German line.
– “If the Germans have a firm position about this, and I know them pretty well by now, then this is a real problem,” he said. “So we should look at a limited treaty change.”
– Michel Barnier, the EU commissioner responsible for the internal market, told the German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung he was going to propose that government bailouts of banks would be a last resort in the future, only after shareholders, bondholders, and, if necessary, savings exceeding 100,000 euros had been wiped out.
– Barnier’s initiative, the newspaper drily noted, “should absolutely meet with sympathy in the federal government,” because Berlin has long wanted a clear set of rules for dealing with failing banks and using European bailout funds as a last resort.
You be the judge. How serious is Germany about preserving the euro as long as Schaueble is insisting it is “my way or the highway”?
Copyright © 2013 MarketWatch, Inc. All rights reserved.
New anti-euro party intensifies pressure on Merkel
Commentary: Challenge from right could spoil her coalition
By David Marsh, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) — Intensifying political and economic strains in the euro area are driving German Chancellor Angela Merkel toward increasingly hard-line policies on the single currency, just at the time when many euro advocates are calling for more German flexibility to save Europe from another bout of summer currency jitters.
– Sunday saw the formal inauguration in Berlin of Alternative for Germany (AfD), an anti-euro party that intends to contest the Sept. 22 German elections, which says it has more than 7,000 members just a few weeks after its first meeting.
Bernd Lucke, founder of the "Alternative fuer Deutschland" ("Alternative for Germany") political party.
– Led by a softly-spoken 50-year-old economics professor, Bernd Lucke, AfD adds further to the fragmentation of German politics. By challenging the increasingly frayed conventional wisdom that the euro has been a success for either Germany or other countries, the party is likely to mount an important challenge to Merkel, even though the German chancellor is well ahead in the polls and easily the most popular politician in the country.
– On the financial markets, the main significance of the surge in media interest in the new anti-euro grouping is that it strengthens the hand of Jens Weidmann, the Bundesbank president. Weidmann has constantly advocated a tough line against state bailouts in Europe and opposes the outright monetary transactions (OMT) program unveiled by the European Central Bank in summer 2012 for purchasing bonds of hard-hit countries — a plan that has yet to be put into effect and seems increasingly unlikely ever to be used.
– European bond yields have continued to fall in recent weeks in spite of considerable economic uncertainties in Europe, as European markets have been swamped by the effects of heavy-duty quantitative easing in Japan and the U.S.
– However, once the U.S. and Japanese operations tail off or meet substantial resistance, it seems only a matter of time before Europe is hit by another bout of tension over the sharp gap in economic performance between creditor and debtor countries.
– AfD will be of significant nuisance value before the September poll but seems highly unlikely to gain the 5% of votes necessary to win seats in the Bundestag. All the same, by taking away more votes from the Right than the Left, even if his group wins only 3-4%, Lucke could threaten Merkel’s majority in Parliament. She at present relies on support from her coalition partner, the liberal Free Democratic Party, which may not be strong enough to enter the Bundestag in the fall.
– Professor Michael Stürmer, one of Germany’s best-known historians and a member of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions advisory board, says in the daily German newspaper Die Welt Monday that Lucke is a “game-spoiler” for Merkel but not a “game-changer.”
– Significantly, despite the disarray shown by the Merkel government over the botched Cyprus bailout package last month, her CDU/CSU conservative grouping has moved up to 41% of support in latest opinion polls, an advance that many say is due to her uncompromising insistence that depositors in Cypriot banks rather than European taxpayers put up extra funds for the latest rescue package.
– The AfD opposes the euro as the single European currency and has proposed a strategy for its gradual phasing out and replacement either by national currencies or by smaller regional blocs, with the euro possibly remaining in place as a common or parallel currency. There are echoes here of the U.K. Treasury’s celebrated but mistimed “hard ECU” parallel currency plan put forward in 1990 while Europe was making up its mind on the route to monetary union[e].
– Lucke, a full-time economics professor at the University of Hamburg since 1998, is a clear-thinking but sober-sounding father of five devoid of celebrity appeal.
– His party apparatus appears populated by down-to-earth German people including a fair share of relatively young women — a combination that may add to grassroots attraction in a country that has been suspicious of rabble-rousers since the Second World War.
– Lucke’s academic and political background counters the impression that he represents right-wing radicalism. He was a member of Merkel’s CDU for 33 years, was initially relatively favorable to the euro but changed his mind three years ago with the European bailout of Greece.
– He calls for an end to the various rescue packages for euro members, saying the extremely large declines in real wages demanded by austerity is incompatible with democracy and is dividing Europe. He disagrees with Merkel’s view that ‘if the euro fails, Europe will fail’ saying that the euro could be phased out without any long-term harm to Europe.
– Lucke has an undergraduate degree in economics, history and philosophy from the University of Bonn, postgraduate studies in economics from UC Berkeley and the University of Bonn, and a Ph.D. in applied microeconomics at the Free University of Berlin. Lucke’s primary research interests include sovereign default, news-driven business cycles, growth in developing countries, dynamic computable general equilibrium models and applied econometrics.
In coming months, at least on German TV programs, he is due to become a household name.
David Marsh is chairman of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum.