EUPOL started poorly, losing its first commander, and faces serious problems recruiting high-caliber staff.	欧盟警卫署的工作开展得很艰难，失去了它的第一任指挥官，并且在招募高职位的人员方面面临着巨大的困难。


Finally, the Commission’s annual development assistance to Afghanistan is falling this year, from €200 million to €150 million.	最后，欧盟对阿富汗每年的发展援助今年也从2亿欧元降到了1. 5亿欧元。


Individual commitments are also being cut – for example, France’s five-year, €33 million pledge for reconstruction support is strikingly low compared to its total foreign-aid budget of €9 billion.	单个国家的援助同样也大大削减了，比如，法国承诺在5年内提供3300万欧元的重建资金与它总共90亿欧元的对外援助预算相比起来低得可怜。


The EU cannot alter the international coalition’s strategy alone.	欧盟无力单独改变国际联合部队的战略。


But a united EU can act as a powerful advocate for a better and more coordinated international approach.	但是一个集体行动的欧盟能够更有力地提倡采取协调更好、更紧密的国际努力。


The US has argued that more troops are needed to dominate the terrain, lambasting EU governments for failing to step up their efforts as the US commits 3500 additional marines to the fray.	美国提出需要更多的兵力来控制该地区，并且指责欧盟国家没有跟随美国增派3500名海军陆战队士兵到争议地区的行动做出它们自己的努力。


European countries, meanwhile, criticize the current military strategy.	而欧洲国家则批评目前采取的军事战略。


They fear that more troops may only lead to more civilian casualties, antagonizing Afghans.	它们担心派遣更多的兵力只会带来更多的平民伤亡，而进一步引发阿富汗人的敌对情绪。


Without a grand bargain between the US and the EU that ensures increased European support and troops, success in Afghanistan will be elusive and alliance-testing tensions with the US will remain.	美国和欧盟之间无法达成重要的协议以确保欧洲能提高它的支持力度和兵力，阿富汗的成功只能是镜花水月，而与美国之间的盟友关系将会依然面临考验。


Such a bargain must contain two elements.	这种协议应该包含两个方面。


First, the EU should commit to sending more troops, trainers, and civilians to the Afghan mission, as well as lifting all remaining “caveats” on its troops.	首先，欧盟应该承诺派遣更多的兵力、教官和文职人员以支持阿富汗事业，并且取消所有现存的对其军队行动的“告诫”。


The mission needs a 10% troop increase, more military and police trainers, and more military equipment, including helicopters.	这项事业需要增加10%的兵力、更多的军事和警察教官以及更多的军事装备，包括直升机。


In addition, the Commission should reverse the decline in assistance and spend more money though local governments and the PRTs.	此外，欧盟应该改变援助下降的状况，向地方政府和省级重建队注入更多的资金。


In exchange, the US should accept a strategic shift from combat operations to human security.	作为交换，美国应该接受从军事行动向人的安全的战略转变。


Such a strategy means focusing more attention on ordinary Afghans, gradually expanding NATO’s security presence outward from population centers, and working hand-in-glove with state and local authorities.	这种战略意味着更多地关注普通的阿富汗百姓，将北约安全部队从人口聚居的中心逐渐向外围扩展，并且与中央和地方政府共同合作。


This new strategy would be further strengthened if the international community abandoned the current counter-narcotics policy – including an end to aerial eradication – and helping Karzai reach a political settlement with mid-ranking, “moderate” insurgents.	如果国际社会能够放弃它目前打击毒品的政策，包括结束从空中清除罂粟的行动，而帮助卡尔扎伊与中层、“温和”的叛乱分子达成政治解决方案，那么这种新的战略会更有力。


All of this will require leadership that cuts across institutional boundaries, which can be provided only by the UN and a strong-willed individual.	所有这些都需要领导层消除机构间的界线，而这只有通过联合国和各国的果敢才能实现。


The appointment of a new UN envoy should prove a more efficient way of coordinating Afghanistan’s international helpmates.	任命新的联合国特使应该被证明是国际社会在阿富汗问题上协调行动更有效的一种方式。


And it is to be hoped that whoever is chosen may be able to foster the grand bargain between the US and EU that is so badly needed.	并且我们希望无论谁被选中都能够促成美国和欧盟达成迫切需要的重要协议。


Despite the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, all is not lost.	尽管阿富汗局势出现了恶化，但是还有希望。


But turning the situation around will require changing the way the international community operates.	但是转变局势需要国际社会改变它们目前的行动方式。


By striking a bargain with the US, the EU should lead the way.	通过与美国达成协议，欧盟能够在这方面起带头作用。


The EU Moves Ahead At Last	欧盟终于前行


With much noise and commotion, the European Union has sidestepped catastrophe – but only just.	在吵闹声中，欧盟避免了一场灾难，但却是险象环生。


It was damned close. In a united effort, a major crisis that would have openly divided the Union for years to come and which would have made Europe a global laughingstock was averted.	在欧盟各国共同努力下，欧盟避免了一场有可能在未来几年中公开分裂欧盟并让其成为全球笑柄的重大危机。


The EU ran aground two years ago when France and the Netherlands said no to the European constitution.	两年前，当法国和荷兰投票否决欧盟宪法的时候，欧盟进程搁浅了。


With the new agreement, the Union has once again started to move.	有了这一协议，欧盟再次开始前进。


While the mandate for an intergovernmental conference to develop a new treaty will create something less than a constitution, the coming treaty will go well beyond the present Treaty of Nice – provided things go according to what has been agreed.	尽管授权政府间会议制定一部新条约只是创立低于宪法的文件，但是，只要事情按各方同意的发展，新条约将会大大超越目前的尼斯条约。


But two steep hurdles still need to be overcome: the intergovernmental conference and ratification through the national parliaments or by means of a referendum in all member states.	但是，还是有两大障碍需要跨越，那就是政府间会议以及在全体成员国内通过议会或者全民公决予以批准。


Still, German Chancellor Angela Merkel can be proud of what was achieved.	然而，德国总理默克尔还是可以把取得的成就引以为豪。


It is her first real success in international diplomacy.	这是她在国际外交中的首次真正成功。


That Friday night in Brussels involved very real and tough decisions.	星期五晚上在布鲁塞尔做出了许多非常实际而又困难的决定。


The German chancellor played for high stakes and won.	德国总理孤注一掷最终获胜。


She deserves respect and recognition.	她值得人们的尊重和认可。


If the new treaty comes into being, the institutional reforms that the union needs will become a reality, and a new double majority voting procedure will take effect, even if with some delay.	如果新的条约成型，欧盟所需要的机构改革就将成为现实，而且新的双多数投票表决程序即使拖延也将生效。


The EU has worked for 20 years on these reforms.	欧盟已经为此努力了20年。


The enlarged Union, inevitable when Europe’s Cold War division ended in 1989, needed new institutions to act efficiently and with transparency.	欧洲的冷战分裂在1989年终结，不可避免地使得欧盟东扩。 这一扩大的欧盟需要新的机制来高效透明地运转。


The new treaty is supposed to become effective in 2009.	新的条约预计于2009年生效。


Twenty years seems to be what it takes Europe to change, and that is anything but reassuring.	欧洲看起来需要20年时间来改变，这绝不是令人欣慰的事情。


The treaty calls for a new EU foreign minister – although he is formally denied that title, this is what everyone will call him – with a strong administrative infrastructure in the European Commission and the Council.	新的条约设立了新的欧盟外长。 尽管正式取消了外长这一头衔，但是人们还是这样称呼。


The rotating presidency will be replaced by an elected President of the Council.	欧盟委员会和理事会将会有强大的行政基础结构。


A new balance will be struck between the EU and member states, and a stronger role will be given to the European Parliament and the national parliaments.	轮值主席将会被经过选举的理事会主席所取代。 欧盟和成员国之间将会达成新的平衡，而且将会赋予欧洲议会和各国议会更大的作用。


EU citizens will be endowed with legally binding fundamental rights, and majority decisions will become the general norm.	欧盟公民们将被赋予具有法律约束力的基本权利，而且经过多数同意形成的决定将会成为通例。


A high price had to be paid for this agreement.	人们为这一协议付出了巨大的代价。


The new treaty is not simpler or more transparent than the rejected Constitution, quite the contrary.	新的条约并不比遭到否决的宪法更为简单和透明，恰恰相反。


And the wrangling in the run-up to and in Brussels itself surely did not contribute to the EU’s popularity among its citizens.	在布鲁塞尔峰会召开前夕和会议进行中的勾心斗角并没有为欧盟在其公民中的受欢迎程度作出贡献。


Indeed, the damage sustained in the process will linger.	确实，这一进程中造成的损害还会持续下去。


The following consequences are already foreseeable:	以下几个后果已经可以预计了。


First, that night of hard negotiations in Brussels reinforced the two-tier Europe for the next two decades.	首先，布鲁塞尔那一晚的艰苦谈判加剧了未来二十年的双层欧盟局面。


The recalcitrant states achieved a Pyrrhic victory because it will quickly become clear to them that, even if the EU is getting a new institutional framework, the avantgarde countries will decide among themselves what the concrete arrangements will look like.	几个顽固的国家付出惨痛的代价方才获得胜利，因为它们将会很快认识到，即使欧盟有了新的机构框架，那些先驱国家还是会在它们中间决定具体的安排。


Enhanced cooperation among these countries and the Euro zone will be the instrument for this.	在这些国家和欧元区中改进合作对于这一点十分关键。


Second, Franco-German cooperation has shown itself all the more indispensable in the enlarged Union.	第二，法德合作在扩大的欧盟中尤为不可或缺。


Despite all the differences that might exist between the two countries – differences that are likely to grow – there is no alternative to their alliance.	尽管两国之间存有分歧而且有可能扩大，但是它们两国除了联盟别无选择。


Third, the UK has once again weakened its own position within Europe.	第三，英国在一次在欧盟内部削弱了自己的地位。


Its policy of “opting out” keeps Britain on the sidelines of the EU.	它的“置身度外”的政策让英国处于欧盟的边缘。


This will further reduce the importance of Britain, both in Europe and in the world.	这将会进一步减少英国在欧洲和世界的重要性。


The political and economic significance of all the mid-sized European powers is waning, and they are shrinking relative to the US and the rising giants of Asia.	欧洲中等大国的政治和经济重要性正在下降，而且与美国和崛起的亚洲巨人相比正在萎缩。


Only a strong Europe can provide the necessary counterweight.	只有强大的欧洲才可以提供必要的平衡力。


A UK that plays a marginal role within the EU will thus lose its influence even faster, including its special voice in the US.	英国在欧盟发挥边缘化的作用将会因此更快地失去其影响力，包括其在美国特殊的声音。


Fourth, Poland has to ask itself what kind of role it wants to play within the EU.	第四，波兰应该自问，它想要在欧盟中发挥什么作用。


Poland is an important country within the Union.	波兰是欧盟的重要国家。


Properly considered, Poland’s existential interests, its geopolitical location, and its history, demand that it do everything to contribute as much as possible to a strong EU.	如果加以仔细考虑，波兰的存在利益、其地理位置及其历史要求其尽力为强大的欧盟作出尽可能多的贡献。


Instead, the nationalistic government in Warsaw is bent on isolating itself within Europe.	相反，华沙的民族主义政府却决心在欧洲内部自我孤立。


The Poles should ask themselves the following question: Would, Poland’s traditional security concern, Russia, be happy or sad if the Polish government had really carried out its threat and used its veto to block the Brussels agreement?	波兰人应该问他们自己这样的问题，那就是，如果波兰政府果真把威胁付之行动、动用否决权来阻碍布鲁塞尔协议的话，波兰传统上的安全担忧俄国是会高兴还是难过？


The answer is clear: of course, the Russians would have rubbed their hands in jubilation and secretly celebrated the twin brothers at the head of the Polish state.	答案是明显的：俄国人将会兴奋不已，暗地里为波兰的双胞胎兄弟领导人弹冠相庆。


Ukraine, on the other hand, whose cause in Europe the Poles ostensibly champion, would have been in serious difficulties in the wake of a Polish veto.	在另一方面，波兰表面上支持乌克兰加入欧盟。 如果波兰投票否决，乌克兰就会处于十分困难的境地。


It is not for nothing that Ukraine’s President Viktor Yushchenko tried, or so it is said, to make this clear to the Polish leadership in several telephone calls.	据说，乌克兰总统尤先科试着几次打电话给波兰领导人表明这一点，这绝不是毫无目的的。


The damage to German-Polish relations also goes beyond the spat between the two governments, and reaches deep into both German and Polish societies.	对德国和波兰关系的损害还超越了两国政府之间的口角而深入德国和波兰两国社会。


It will not be easily repaired.	这不会轻易地修补好的。


This is important because a consistent European policy toward Russia – one of the key urgent challenges facing Europe – depends on close cooperation between Poland and Germany.	这是重要的，因为欧洲对俄国的一贯政策是欧洲面临的关键而又急迫的挑战之一，这一政策取决于波兰和德国之间的紧密合作。


As I said, it is too early to celebrate.	正如我所说的，现在庆贺还为时尚早。


The time for celebrations will come only after the new treaty is ratified.	只有在新条约获得批准才能够庆贺。


Indeed, the circumstances under which the Brussels compromise has been reached leave a bitter aftertaste.	确实，布鲁塞尔峰会达成妥协的情况给人留下了苦味。


But still, last Friday the EU took a decisive step in the right direction.	但是尽管这样，欧盟再上星期五还是在正确的方向上采取了一个决定性的步骤。


The EU Must Start Negotiations with Turkey	欧盟必须开始和土耳其的谈判


On December 17 of last year, the European Council decided to open accession negotiations with Turkey this October. Two conditions were put to the Turkish government: a comprehensive legal reform aimed at reinforcing the rule of law and human rights, and approval of the Adaptation Protocol of the Ankara Agreement, which extends the customs union with the EU to all new member states, including the Republic of Cyprus.	在去年的12月17日，欧洲理事会决定在今年的10月开始与土耳其的入盟谈判，并向土耳其政府提出了两个条件：（实施）以加强法制和人权为目的的综合法律体系改革和批准《安卡拉协议》的《修改协议》。


Turkey has met these conditions: the legal reform entered into force on June 1, and the Protocol was signed on July 29.	该《协议》将欧盟的关税同盟扩大到包括塞浦路斯共和国在内的所有新成员国。 土耳其满足了这些条件：法制改革在6月1日正式实施，该《协议》也在7月29日签署。


A formal recognition by Turkey of the Republic of Cyprus, including its extension to the Northern part of the island, was not requested as a precondition for starting accession talks.	土耳其正式承认塞浦路斯共和国及其在该岛北部的延伸并不是启动入盟谈判的前提条件。


This is a complex matter related to the efforts by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to negotiate a comprehensive settlement leading to reunification of the island.	这是一个与联合国秘书长安南通过谈判达成综合解决方案，以促成该岛统一的努力相关的复杂事件。


Last year, both Turkey and the Turkish Cypriot community accepted the Secretary General’s proposals, which were, however, rejected by the Greek Cypriot side.	去年，土耳其和塞浦路斯土耳其族社团接受了秘书长的提议，但塞浦路斯的希腊族方面却拒绝了。


There is every reason to expect Annan to resume his good offices soon and to bring the question to a positive conclusion well before Turkey’s possible entry into the EU around 2015.	我们有足够的理由期待安南会很快再次开始斡旋，并在土耳其可能加入欧盟的2015年前后以积极的方式解决这一问题。


The Cyprus issue should therefore not be construed as an obstacle to the start of negotiations.	因此，塞浦路斯问题不应该成为启动谈判的障碍。


The same is true of the reported intention of some EU governments to have the so-called “Privileged Partnership” concept explicitly included in the negotiating framework as an alternative to full membership.	同样，欧盟一些成员国政府将“优惠伙伴关系”（ Privileged Partnership）作为正式成员国地位之外的另一种选择，明确加入谈判框架的意图也不应该成为一个障碍。


This proposal was discussed at last December’s European Council meeting and rejected, resulting in a reference to “open-ended negotiations” in the Council’s conclusions.	这一提议在去年12月的欧洲理事会会议上进行了讨论，并被驳回。 其结果是在该理事会的决议中出现了“开放式谈判”的字眼。


That wording – never used in previous enlargement rounds – may have ruffled Turkey’s feathers, but it was finally accepted as the type of constructive ambiguity that is so often used in international diplomacy.	这样的措辞—从未在前几轮的欧盟扩增中用到—可能让土耳其有些恼火，但最终也作为一种国际外交中常用的建设性模糊概念而被各方接受。


It is nonetheless obvious from the very nature of accession negotiations that full membership must be the goal.	但从入盟谈判的特点来看，取得正式成员国地位都无疑是必然的目标。


Without that prospect, no candidate country would go through the painful process of adopting the tens of thousands of rules and regulations contained in the Acquis Communautaire (the body of EU law).	如果看不到这样的前景，没有一个候选国家会愿意经历采纳Acquis Communautaire（欧盟的法律集成）中成千上万条法令和规章的痛苦过程。


To ensure that it does, is, after all, the main purpose of accession talks.	毕竟，确保这样的前景才是入盟谈判的主要目的。


Moreover, it is difficult to imagine what advantages could be offered to Turkey in the framework of a “Privileged Partnership” beyond its long-time status as an Associate Member of the EU.	另外，很难想象在土耳其作为欧盟长期“准成员国”的地位的基础上，“优惠伙伴关系”的框架还能给它带来多大的优势。


The Customs Union concluded ten years ago allows free trade for all but agricultural goods.	十年前达成的关税同盟允许除农产品以外的自由贸易。 土耳其应邀参加欧洲理事会会议；


Turkey is invited to Council meetings, it can participate in various EU programs and in manifestations of the European Common Foreign Policy, and, as a member of NATO, it is a partner in EU-NATO security cooperation.	它可以参与各种欧盟项目和《欧洲共同外交政策》的实施； 同时，作为北约的成员，它也是欧盟—北约安全合作的伙伴。


Finally, like all candidate countries, Turkey also receives financial and technical assistance in support of ongoing reform programs.	和所有的候选国一样，土耳其也接受支持其现行改革计划的财政和技术支援。


Short of full membership, there is hardly room for added value in Turkey’s relationship with the EU.	没有正式的成员国地位，土耳其和欧盟的关系中就几乎没有附加值可言。


Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn has spelt it out with the necessary clarity: “If we stick to what we have ourselves decided at the highest political level in the European Council, as we should, I am reasonably confident that the negotiations shall start on the October 3.”	欧盟扩增事务专员奥利·瑞恩（Olli Rehn）已经非常明确地指出：“如果我们坚持执行我们已在欧洲委员会的最高政治层所做出的决议，就像我们所应该的那样，那么我就有理由相信谈判会在10月3日启动。 ”


This statement is to the credit of the European Commission, and there is not much to be added, except to emphasize that it is up to EU governments to treat Turkey with the fairness that all candidate countries deserve.	这一声明表达了欧盟委员会的立场，除了强调土耳其是否能得到所有候选国都应得的公正，要看欧盟各国政府是否给予它一视同仁的待遇外，已经无话可说。


To renege on formal decisions and commitments, or to add last-minute obstacles, would make a mockery of the Union’s credibility.	在正式的决议和承诺上食言，或增加临时障碍的做法，都是在拿欧盟的公信力开玩笑。


Negotiations therefore must begin on October 3.	因此，谈判必须在10月3日开始。


The Euro-American Debt Dilemma	欧美债务困境


PALO ALTO – Wealthy Europe and America, crown jewels of mixed capitalist democracies, are drowning in deficits and debt, owing to bloated welfare states that are now in place (Europe) or in the making (the United States).	帕罗奥图——富庶的欧洲和美国，资本主义+民主政体的王冠上的宝石，目前正在赤字和债务泥淖中愈陷愈深。 原因是欧洲的福利国家已经不堪重负，而美国正在走在不堪重负的路上。


As Europe struggles to prevent financial contagion and America struggles to reduce its record deficits, their dangerous debt levels threaten future living standards and strain domestic and international political institutions.	欧洲在为防止金融危机蔓延作斗争，而美国则在忙于削减创纪录的赤字，它们的债务水平非常危险，已经到了威胁未来生活水平、束缚国内和国际政治制度的程度。


The ratings agencies are threatening additional downgrades; others envision an eventual breakup of the euro and/or demise of the dollar as the global reserve currency.	评级机构在威胁将进一步下降信用评级； 其他人则在想象欧元崩溃和/或美元全球储备货币地位的终结的情景。


The economists Ken Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart estimate that public debt/GDP ratios of 90% are associated with sharply diminished growth prospects.	据经济学家罗格夫（Ken Rogoff）和莱因哈特（Carmen Reinhart）估算，如果一国债务-GDP比率达到90%，那么该国增长前景就相当堪忧了。


Greece’s debt ratio is over 120%, Italy’s is around 100%, and the US is at 74%, up from 40% a few years ago – and rapidly approaching 90%.	希腊的负债率已经超过了120%，意大利大约为100%，美国为74%（几年前还只有40%）并且在迅速向90%靠拢。


The International Monetary Fund estimates that each 10-point increase in the debt ratio lowers economic growth by 0.2 percentage points.	IMF估计，负债率每升高10个百分点将导致经济增长率下降0. 2个百分点。


Thus, increases of 40-50% of GDP risk cutting long-run growth in half in parts of Western Europe, and by one-third in America – a devastating reduction in gains in living standards over the course of a generation.	因此，40—50%GDP幅度的债务增幅将令西欧部分国家长期经济增长率腰斩，令美国长期增长率下降三分之一，将对整整一代人的生活标准带来严重打击。


Worse yet, the burden of banking losses that will sooner or later be socialized, and that of future unfunded public pension and health costs, are often understated in official debt figures.	更坏的是，银行损失负担迟早要被社会化，未来公共养老金和医保将入不敷出，而这一切通常都会在官方债务数字中被淡化。


Moreover, the problematic finances of some sub-national governments, for example in the US and Spain, will place pressure on central governments for fiscal aid.	此外，次一级政府的财政问题（比如美国和西班牙情形）将向中央政府伸手要援助，这将进一步增加中央财政的压力。


In Europe, voters in fiscally responsible countries like Germany and the Netherlands are balking at bailouts of governments, banks, and bondholders.	在欧洲，德国和荷兰等财政状况良好的国家的选民对政府、银行和债权人的援助非常不满。


American voters traditionally have favored smaller government and lower taxes than Europeans have favored (or at least tolerated).	美国选民在传统上比欧洲人更喜欢小政府、低税收（也可以说欧洲人对大政府、高税收的忍耐力比美国人高）。


Add continued anger over financial bailouts, rising spending, and the exploding national debt, and even America’s Democrats – the country’s traditional big-spending party – are finally talking deficit reduction.	财政援助、支出上升和国民债务爆炸激起了民众的愤怒情绪，即使是民主党（该党传统上支持大规模支出）也开始谈论削减赤字了。


Following the last deep American recession, in 1981-1982, when the unemployment rate peaked at a higher level than in the recent recession, Democrats blasted President Ronald Reagan for deficits of 6% of GDP.	美国上一次经历深度衰退是在1981—1982年，当时失业率峰值比这次衰退还要高，民主党猛烈地抨击了罗纳德·里根总统相当于GDP的6%的赤字。


Republicans now berate President Barack Obama for deficits of 10% of GDP.	如今，共和党对奥巴马总统10%GDP的赤字展开了口诛笔伐。


Similar political and substantive jockeying occurs in European countries.	类似的政治和严厉手腕在欧洲国家也屡见不鲜。


The simplistic categorization of political parties by their preference for a particular size of government masks more complex intraparty tendencies.	简单地用对政府规模的偏好来区分政党掩盖了复杂的党内斗争。


America’s Republican Party has three types of fiscal conservatives: supply-side tax-cutters, those who would limit government spending, and budget balancers.	美国共和党内就存在三类财政保守派：供给面减税派、限制政府支出派以及预算平衡派。


They historically have feuded over tactics and strategy, but, since the deficit is the difference between revenues and outlays, they are closely interconnected.	历史上，这三派之间经常为战术和战略发生争论，但是，由于赤字无非是收入和支出之间的差额，因此它们之间又有着非常深的联系。


Indeed, because the sum of all future tax revenues (discounted to today) must cover the sum of all future spending plus the national debt, the only way to keep taxes relatively low is to control spending.	事实上，由于所有未来税收收入之和（贴现到现在）必须不小于所有未来支出与国民债务之和，因此保持税收水平相对较低的唯一方法只有控制支出。


Just as Democrats have long championed more government spending, and more benefits for more people, either on ideological grounds or as a political coalition-building strategy, so Republicans have regarded the goal of lowering taxes.	长期以来，不管是在意识形态领域还是在政治联盟战略上，民主党一贯支持更多的政府开支，让更多的人民得到更多的好处。 与此相对，共和党一直拥护低税收政策。


So, not surprisingly, Republicans are using the vote on the debt ceiling to force cuts in entitlement spending, while Obama and Congressional Democrats are using it to force higher taxes, in part to fracture their opponents’ coalition.	因此，毫不奇怪，共和党在运用手中的选票阻止债务上限提高，从而达到迫使福利支出有所削减的目的，而奥巴马和民主党议员则运用选票来提高税收，其中不乏分裂反对派联盟的目的。


High levels of debt combine with slow economic growth in a devilish dance.	高债务、低增长是十分可怕的。


Interest payments on the debt eventually become so burdensome that bondholders demand higher interest payments (Greek debt recently yielded over 30%).	债务利息支出将越滚越大直到债权人要求更高的利息（两年期希腊债券当前收益率超过30%）。


Interest rates on US government debt remain low, so this threat is prospective, but future deficits will be far higher than government projections when rates normalize.	目前美国国债利率仍然很低，因此这一威胁还比较遥远，但一旦利率正常化以后，未来赤字将会远高于政府的预测值。


The best response would be to enact strong controls on budgets, together with structural reforms to promote growth.	最好的对策是严格控制预算，并辅之以提振增长的结构性改革。


In the US, which has the most progressive income tax among the major economies, federal tax reforms that would lower the rates and broaden the base are being discussed.	在所得税堪称主要经济体之最的美国，降低税率、扩大税基的联邦税改革已被提上了议程。


In Europe, structural reforms focus on higher retirement ages and labor-market flexibility.	在欧洲，结构性改革的关注点是提高退休年龄和增加劳动力市场灵活性。


The deleveraging of governments, financial institutions, and households is one major cause of the sluggish economic recovery.	政府、金融机构和家庭的去杠杆化是经济复苏疲软的主要原因。


But sluggish growth means less tax revenue and more demands for payments to cushion hardship, placing pressure on government budgets.	但增长疲软意味着税收收入减少以及缓冲艰难光景的支出需求增加，这会对政府预算造成更大的压力。


The gamble has been that a solid, durable recovery would enable banks and households to rebuild their balance sheets quickly enough to avoid the need for additional bailouts.	这是一场赌博，赌的是扎实持久的复苏能迅速地重塑银行和家庭资产负债表，从而避免进一步援助。


But, so far, that gamble isn’t working as well or as rapidly as hoped.	但是，从目前的情形来看，赌局并不如人们希望的那样乐观。


Banks are profitable on an ongoing basis, borrowing at very low interest rates, often from the central bank, and collecting higher interest rates on their loans.	银行利润连连，它们以极低的利率借入（通常是向中央银行），然后以较高的利率贷出。


But, while instantaneous mark-to-market accounting can overstate the expected losses during a panic, the current values are often an accounting and political fiction.	但是，尽管实时按市值计价的会计准则可能高估恐慌时期的与其损失，但当前值通常只是会计和政治把戏。


Further action on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (America’s huge quasi-government mortgage agencies) and on some weak banks in America, as well as on some of Europe’s weaker, more thinly capitalized banks (the recent stress tests were a tepid first step), will be necessary.	必须对房利美和房地美（美国准政府抵押贷款巨擘）以及一些美国疲软银行（也包括一些欧洲银行，它们比美国银行更疲软、资本充足率更低，最近的压力测试就是不温不火的第一步）采取后续行动。


Banking systems need more capital.	银行体系需要更多的资本。


The best solution is private capital – from retained earnings, new entrants, new ownership, and new investment.	最好的解决办法是私人资本——来自留存利润、新市场进入者、新所有者以及新投资。


But in some cases, additional public capital probably cannot be avoided, as distasteful as it is.	但某些机构可能免不了要被注入更多的公共资本（尽管公共资本的滋味可不怎么样）。


The debt dilemmas in Europe and the US prove yet again that elected officials will ignore long-run costs to achieve short-run benefits, and will act only when forced, in a doomed effort to circumvent the laws of economics and revoke the laws of arithmetic.	除此之外，欧洲和美国的债务困境再次证明了这一事实：当选官员眼里只有短期利益，根本不会顾及长期成本，他们只有在被迫时才会采取行动，而做法一定与经济学和数学定律格格不入。


And that implies an extended period of episodic economic disruption and political upheaval far beyond this summer’s debates on America’s debt ceiling and Europe’s distressed sovereign debtors.	这意味着经济动荡和政治剧变会持续很久，远不是今夏美国债务上限和欧洲受困主权债务人争论所能解决的。


These debates represent just one round in an ongoing struggle, with vast political and economic consequences for years to come.	这些争论仅仅是持续斗争的第一阶段，其重大的政治和经济后果将会在未来多年内逐渐显现。


The Euro Ark	欧元方舟


BRUSSELS – The euro is celebrating its tenth anniversary against the background of the most difficult economic climate since its birth.	布鲁塞尔-，金融风暴从美国席卷而来，严重的经济衰退开始了，欧洲面临着前所未有的挑战：这就是自欧元诞生以来最困难的经济环境。


The financial storm that swept in from the United States, and the onset of a severe economic downturn, confronts Europe with unprecedented challenges.	在这样的背景下，欧元迎来了它十周年的诞辰。


Faced with the biggest test in its history, the euro is far from steering into disaster, as the Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman predicted ten years ago.	面对历史上最大的考验，欧元远远没有如诺贝尔奖得主经济学家米尔顿·弗里德曼10年前所预测的那样进入灾难性的阶段。


On the contrary, Europe’s Economic and Monetary Union is proving a major asset in these tumultuous times.	相反，欧洲“经济和货币联盟”被证明了在动荡岁里月是很重要的和有价值的。


Doubters should remember that the euro was itself born out of crisis.	怀疑者应该记住，欧元本身就是因危机而产生的。


The single currency was conceived as an answer to the upheavals of the postwar period – double-digit inflation, high unemployment, and speculative attacks on the pound, the lira, and the French franc.	统一货币的设想，是对战后时期的乱象-两位数的通货膨胀、高失业率以及对英镑、里拉和法国法郎投机性攻击-的一个解决方法。


It was the crisis of the European Monetary System that drove the euro’s launch on January 1, 1999.	正是欧洲货币体系的危机促使了欧元于1999年1月1日的推出。


In ten short years, the euro revolutionized the global economic environment, rising to the status of the world’s second currency and rivaling the dollar as a medium for international trade and finance.	在短短十年的时间里，欧元对全球经济环境起到了革命性的作用，它的地位上升到了世界第二大货币，是可以和美元媲美的国际贸易和金融的一种媒介。


The EMU is now the world’s largest market, and continues to grow.	欧洲“经济和货币联盟”是目前世界上最大的市场，而且在继续扩大。


With Slovakia’s entry on January 1, the euro spans 16 countries and 329 million citizens.	随着斯洛伐克于1月1日的加入，欧元区包括了16个国家的3. 29亿公民。


The benefits of a monetary union based on a stable macroeconomic framework and governed by an independent central bank are manifest: the euro area has enjoyed low inflation and low interest rates for much of the last decade, a boost in trade and investment, and rapid integration of financial markets.	建立在稳定的宏观经济框架基础上并由一个独立的中央银行管理的货币联盟所带来的好处是明显的：在过去十年的大部分时间中，欧元地区享有低通胀和低利率、贸易和投资的大幅增长以及金融市场的快速整合。


Moreover, 16 million jobs have been created over the last 10 years – a record more successful than even the US.	此外， 过去10年来共创造了 一千六百万个就业机会-这样的记录甚至比美国还要成功。


Today’s financial turmoil and economic downturn are highlighting the EMU’s advantages in several important ways.	如今的金融风暴和经济衰退凸显了欧洲“经济和货币联盟”在几个重要方面的优势。


First, the euro has eliminated the possibility of exchange-rate turbulence and speculative currency attacks that more vulnerable economies could have expected in the current turmoil.	首先，欧元消除了汇率动荡的可能性，也消除了那些脆弱经济体在目前的动荡中若没有货币联盟的话可能会遭遇的对其货币的投机性攻击。


As a stable and strong world currency, the euro is also limiting exchange-rate instability globally.	作为一个稳定和强大的世界性货币，欧元也在全球范围内限制了汇率的不稳定。


Second, the euro area benefits from an independent European Central Bank whose swift actions to ease liquidity constraints and coordinate monetary policy have recently helped to avert a financial meltdown.	其次，欧元地区受益于有一个独立的欧洲中央银行，它以其迅速的行动，缓解了资金周转困难并协调了货币政策，这些行动近来都有助于对金融危机的避免。


Such rapid, coordinated steps by 16 national central banks would have been unthinkable.	这种快速的协调步骤，若要由16个国家中央银行来执行，那是无法想象的。


Third, the EMU’s stability-oriented macroeconomic framework has better prepared euro-area countries for economic storms.	第三，欧洲货币联盟以稳定为导向的宏观经济框架已经让欧元区国家更从容地做好了抗击经济风暴的准备。


Thanks to the fiscal rules of the Stability and Growth Pact, the euro area achieved its soundest budgetary position in 2007, bringing deficits to their lowest levels in 25 years.	由于“稳定和增长公约”下的财政规则，欧元区在2007年取得了最良好的财政预算状况，使赤字降到了25年的最低水平。


This allowed many European Union countries to approach the crisis with room for maneuver.	这使得许多欧盟的成员国的在解决危机的时候有了回旋的余地。


Such are the EMU’s benefits that the visible costs of remaining a non-member are beginning to recast the political debate surrounding euro adoption in several countries. 	欧洲“经济和货币联盟”的好处是如此大，以至于仍然不加入欧元区成员国的有形成本已开始改写了数个国家中围绕是否加入欧元区的政治辩论。


Of course, the euro is no panacea, nor has it functioned perfectly over the last decade.	当然，欧元并非灵丹妙药，在过去十年里它的作用也不是发挥得十全十美。


Divergences between euro-area economies in terms of growth and inflation have been a persistent challenge.	欧元地区内的经济体之间，在增长和通货膨胀率方面的分歧一直是一个挑战。


Though differences are no bigger than those found within larger economies such as the US or Germany, they risk being amplified by the crisis.	虽然没有像更大的经济体如美国或德国之间的分歧那么大，但这些分歧却存在因危机而被放大的危险。


This is why it is even more important that we continue to improve the EMU’s functioning.	这就是为什么说更重要的是我们要继续改善欧洲“经济与货币联盟”的功能 。


This requires not just reinforcing resilience in the face of crisis, but also equipping euro-area economies for the longer-term challenges of globalization, aging, resource scarcity, and climate change.	面对危机，不仅需要加强应变能力，而且还要让欧元区经济体做好应对全球化、人口老龄化、资源匮乏和气候变化的长期挑战。


In a potentially more volatile twenty-first century global economy, we must reap the maximum benefits of economic integration in terms of growth and jobs.	在潜在的更加动荡的二十一世纪的全球经济中，我们必须以增长和就业来收获经济一体化带来的好处。


The key to a better functioning EMU is closer surveillance and deeper coordination of economic policies.	促使欧洲“经济和货币联盟” 运作更加良好的关键是对其经济政策实行更密切的监视和更深入的协调。


Leaders must start living up to the responsibilities that come with sharing a single currency.	各国领导人必须开始担负起随共享统一货币而来的责任。


They must recognize the impact that national economic policies have on the euro area as a whole, and thus discuss and coordinate economic programs at the euro-area level.	他们必须认识到各个国家的经济政策对欧元地区作为一个整体所产生的影响，因此，他们必须在整个欧元区的层面上来讨论和协调其经济计划。


Here, the launch of the European Economic Recovery Plan – the initiative for an EU-wide fiscal stimulus equivalent to 1.5% of GDP, endorsed by the European Heads of Government in December – constitutes a major step forward.	在这里，“欧洲经济复苏计划”的推出，-这是一个全欧盟范围的财政刺激方案，相当于1 . 5％的国民生产总值，并在1 2月间得到了欧洲各国政府首脑的首肯-是向前迈进了一大步。


This must now be followed by closer budgetary monitoring, particularly given that fiscal stimulus measures, the economic downturn, and bank rescue plans will take a toll on public finances.	这之后，现在必须要通过更密切的预算监督进行跟踪执行，特别是考虑到财政刺激措施、经济不景气和银行救援计划将动用公共财政的钱。


The Stability and Growth Pact must remain the cornerstone of the EU’s budgetary framework, and effective surveillance and peer support will be vital to help member states work towards balanced budgets once the economy rebounds.	必须坚持以“稳定和增长公约”作为欧盟预算框架的基石。 一旦经济反弹，有效的监测和会员国之间的支持将会对帮助会员国努力实现预算平衡方面起到至关重要的作用，


Deeper fiscal surveillance should be matched by broader economic surveillance, especially since current-account imbalances have become more acute during the crisis.	深入的财政监督应辅之以更广泛的经济监督，特别是因为经常账户的失衡在危机中会变得更加突出。


The European Commission is now working on extending the focus of surveillance beyond fiscal policy so that we can identify risks stemming from macroeconomic imbalances or changes in competitiveness and address them before they become entrenched.	欧盟委员会目前正在研究使监督重点扩大到财政政策之外，这样我们就能够识别因宏观经济的不平衡或竞争力的改变而产生的风险，并在问题变得棘手之前，就开始解决它们。


Finally, euro-area nations must strive harder to find common positions on international issues and to speak with a single voice in the global arena.	最后，欧元区国家必须更加努力以在国际问题上找到共同立场，在全球舞台上用一个声音说话。


This is the only way to promote and defend the EMU’s economic interests in a world where the challenges are global and overcoming them will increasingly depend on multilateral cooperation.	在这个挑战成为全球性而克服这些挑战将越来越依赖于多边合作的世界中，只有这样，���能促进和维护欧洲“经济和货币联盟”的经济利益。


Consider November’s international summit on the financial crisis.	大家回想一下11月间的为应付金融危机而召开的国际首脑会议吧。


Agreeing a common position ahead of the meeting gave Europe a greater role.	在会议举行之前欧洲各国就已取得了一个共同立场，这让欧洲发挥了更大的作用。


When the euro area manages to agree swiftly on a coordinated position, this can be instrumental to finding agreement in the EU as a whole and internationally.	当欧元区通过协调能够迅速地达成一致的立场的时候，这会有助于欧盟作为一个整体并在国际范围找到共识。


It is vital we now build on this success and develop a genuine international strategy for the euro.	至关重要的是，我们现在要在此成功的基础上为欧元制定出真正的国际化战略。


The European single currency has been a major success, but it remains a work in progress.	欧洲的统一货币已取得了重大成功，但这项工作仍然处于不断进展中。


A decade after the euro’s introduction, we must follow the example of its founders and turn crisis into opportunity by uniting in a spirit of cooperation and ambition – and thereby reinforce the EMU’s foundations.	在欧元启用后十年的今天，我们必须效法其创始人，以团结合作和雄心勃勃的精神，化危机为机遇，从而夯实欧洲“经济和货币联盟”的基石。


The Euro Awaits Its Verdict	欧元等待判决结果


WASHINGTON, DC – The creation of the euro just over a decade ago was a courageous and unique experiment.	         华盛顿——十年前，欧元开始启用，这是一次独特而大胆的尝试。


Today, the outcome – whether the euro will survive, and whether the Europeans are right to keep it – is very much in doubt.	然而今天，该实验的结果却引发了人们的质疑，欧元是否应该继续存在? 欧洲人让它存在是否正确？


But, if the eurozone does survive, it promises great advantages for member countries – and perhaps for the world.	但是，如果欧元区存在，它可能带给欧元区成员国，甚至整个世界，无数好处。


The euro is an ultra-fixed currency among members: participating countries locked themselves into an initial exchange rate vis-à-vis their pre-existing currencies and then threw the keys into the long grass.	        欧元是欧元区成员国中极端固定的货币：在最初，就把参与国本国货币兑欧元的汇率固定了，它们将自己锁在这个牢笼里，并将钥匙扔进了茂密的草丛中。


Nowadays, an increasing number of Europeans are combing that grass, quietly looking for those keys.	如今，越来越多的国家在默默地梳理那个草丛，寻找钥匙。


The euro shares important features with versions of the old gold standard, under which countries fixed their exchange rates relative to each other by setting the price at which domestic currency could be redeemed in gold.	       欧元制与以前的金本位制有着很大的相似之处。 在金本位制下，各国家制定出以黄金兑换本国货币的价格，以此来固定本国相对其他国的汇率。


Today, some people espouse the view – often loudly – that the gold standard was synonymous with economic and financial stability.	今天，一些人时常大声疾呼，号称自己支持“金本位意味着经济和金融稳定”的观点。


But that is completely at odds with the historical record: the era of the gold standard is replete with boom-bust episodes fueled by over-borrowing by governments, firms, individuals, or all of the above.	但是此观点却与历史记录相左，在金本位时期，由于政府，公司，个人或是它们一起的过分借款，导致那时的金融市场经常大起大落。


There are three differences between the euro and the gold standard – none of which is particularly reassuring at this moment.	       欧元制和金本位制有三个不同点，可是现在，没有一点能让人从中得到安慰。


First, the gold standard’s central premise was a finite quantity of gold in the world; more of it cannot be created or discovered, at least not quickly.	第一，金本位制的核心前提是，世界上的金子有限。 人们不能创造或是发现更多的金子，至少在短期内不可能。


By contrast, the European Central Bank can create more euros if so desired.	相反，如果急需欧元，欧洲中央银行可以制造更多。


Countries cannot run out of liquidity, because the ECB can always provide more cash.	欧元区国家不可能缺少流动货币，因为欧洲中央银行总能够提供更多的货币。


But governments and investors know this, and the result has been much higher debt-to-GDP ratios than would have been possible under the gold standard.	       政府和投资者深知这一点，结果出现了比金本位制下更高的负债率。


The eurozone as a whole has a debt-to-GDP ratio of 90%, which is high by any standard.	整个欧元区的负责率达90%，无论以何种标准来看，都很高。


Such debt levels are sustainable as long as investors continue to assume that another bailout is just around the corner.	       但是，只要投资者依然认为其他的紧急救助即将到来，这种债务水平都是可以接受的。


But if the ECB is threatening to cut off support – for example, because a government will not comply with what the Germans regard as good economic policy – the whole house of cards can come tumbling down.	可是，假如某个政府不服从德国政府所认为的好的经济政策，那么欧洲中央银行将终止对其的支持，此时整个纸牌屋（高额负债国）将会轰然倒塌。


Second, financial markets have become huge relative to anything seen under the gold standard.	        第二，金融市场与金本位制下一切可见物息息相关。


European banks could bulk up in large part because it was assumed that their respective governments backed them.	欧洲的银行可以大规模扩大，因为它认为各自的政府会支持它。


Not only are these banks now large relative to some national economies, but the quality of government credit is now in question across the eurozone periphery – up to and including Italy.	这些银行不仅与国民经济关系密切，而且还影响欧元区外围国家的政府信用质量，甚至波及到意大利。


The term “risk-free asset” has become an oxymoron in contemporary Europe.	在当代欧洲“无风险资产”已经成为一种矛盾语。


European banks have been operating on a great deal of debt and very little shareholder capital – the essential buffer against potential losses.	        欧洲银行在大量负债的情况下运行，全靠寥寥无几的股东资产来缓冲可能面临的风险。


Any shock to sovereign debt or further downturn in local economies will be transmitted through an overleveraged and undercapitalized banking system to other European countries and – quite possibly – elsewhere, including the United States.	任何对主权债务的冲击或是本土经济的衰退，都将由过度杠杆化或是资本严重不足的银行系统转移给其他欧洲国家，很有可能是其他任何地方，包括美国。


Finally, for all the talk today of the discipline that the gold standard supposedly provided, countries that adhered to it regularly suspended convertibility – meaning that the domestic currency could no longer be converted freely into gold.	       最后，尽管今天谈论金本位可能给金融市场带来的规范作用，可是金本位国家却经常暂停兑换，这意味着本国货币不能自由兑换成黄金。


But today’s Europeans have no domestic currency – just the euro.	但是今天的欧洲没有本国货币，只有欧元。


If any country – for example, Greece – left the euro, all contracts in that country would have to be rewritten.	如果任何国家��例如希腊，离开欧元区，那么所有的合约都必须重写。


The disruption, particularly to credit, would be profound.	这种破坏，尤其是对信贷的破坏，将会是极深的。


The proper functioning of the gold standard required a high degree of flexibility in wages and prices.	        金本位制的合理运行需要工资和物价的高度灵活性。


If exchange rates cannot depreciate, wages and prices need to fall when a country has an unsustainable current-account deficit.	如果汇率不能下调，那么当一个国家发生不可承受的往来账户赤字时，工资和物价就不得不下降。


But, as peripheral Europe can now attest, this is a cumbersome, painful, and politically unpopular form of economic adjustment.	但是，欧洲外围国家证明，这种形式的经济调控是讨厌的，痛苦的，也是政治上不受欢迎的。


Expect the backlash against it to grow in the months and years ahead.	希望人们对这种调控的反抗在未来的几个月或是几年里逐渐增长。


The news focus today is on how hard it is for the eurozone periphery to adjust and return to growth, owing to the combination of high public debt and actual or perceived austerity measures.	        今日新闻的焦点是欧元区外围国家调整并恢复经济增长有多困难，这些困难是由高额的政府债务以及现行的或是可感知的紧缩政策导致的。


But there is a flip side to the problem: capital is flowing to Germany as the regional safe haven, making credit more readily available there.	但是这个问题也有其另一面，德国作为区域安全的避风港，资本不断流入，使得信贷在德国变得很容易。


The dynamics of adjustment within the eurozone exacerbate the underlying imbalances – Germany is becoming more competitive while the periphery remains uncompetitive.	欧元区的动态调整将会加剧潜在的不平衡，德国越来越具竞争力而周边国家依然没有竞争力。


The recent Greek elections have brought more radical parties to the fore.	        近来，希腊大选将许多激进党推到前面。


Alexis Tsipras, the head of the Coalition of the Radical Left has a valid point: “internal devaluation” – cutting wages and prices – is failing as a strategy.	激进左翼联盟领导人阿莱克斯•齐普拉斯一针见血地指出，“内部贬值”，即削减工资和物价（来缩小与欧元区其他国家之间的竞争力差距），是失败的举措。


His alternative appears to be to abandon the euro.	他的解决办法是放弃欧元。


If Greece can’t do better than this, he argues, then it should leave.	如果希腊没有比这更好的办法，那么它理应离开。


But this is not about Greece any longer.	         但是，这已经不是希腊一个国家的问题。


Italy, Spain, Portugal, and even Ireland face the same issues, but are at an earlier stage in the backlash.	意大利，西班牙，葡萄牙，甚至爱尔兰也面临着同样的问题，只是依然处于反抗的早期。


Unemployment is rising, their economies are not becoming more competitive, and the interest rates on their debt continue to rise.	失业率在上升，它们的经济越来越没有竞争力，可是贷款利率却在不断上升。


These countries may eventually decide to leave.	最终，这些国家也有可能决定离开。


And, even if they don’t make that choice, fear of such exits can easily become self-fulfilling.	即使它们不作出这样的决定，但这样的担忧很可能应验。


The euro system was designed to deliver prosperity and stability for all. It has clearly failed for some countries, and it may fail for many.	       欧元制度的设立原本是为了给所有国家带来繁荣和稳定，可是，对许多国家而言，这种制度已经失败了。


Severe mismanagement by European politicians has caused damage that will last for decades.	欧洲政客对该制度的严重的管理不当，造成的损失将会持续几十年。


Perhaps a stronger fiscal union, a central ministry of finance, and debt sharing would reduce the difficulties and imbalances enough to allow the euro to survive.	       或许一个更强大的财政联盟，中央财政部或是债务共享能够减少这些困难，降低不平衡，使得欧元制继续存在。


Perhaps adjustment will start to work just in time.	又或许金融调整会适时地开始起作用。


There is a lot of shouting in the jury room. Expect a verdict soon.	      陪审团议事室里呼声一片，希望尽快判决。


The Euro Grows Up	欧元在成长


On January 1, the euro celebrated its sixth birthday.	1月1日，欧元度过了自己的六岁生日。


Today, we look back on a period in which the European Central Bank has successfully pursued a stability-oriented single monetary policy serving more than 300 million citizens.	今天，我们一起来回顾一下欧洲央行在三亿居民中成功地推行以稳定为中心的单一货币政策的这段时光。


This is a remarkable achievement.	这的确是个了不起的成就。


When the Maastricht Treaty was ratified in 1993, many people doubted whether Economic and Monetary Union would work.	1993年《马斯特里赫特条约》刚修改时，很多人都对经济和货币联盟能否成功持怀疑的态度。


The Treaty’s objective was widely thought to be laudable – but realizable only in the indefinite future.	《条约》的目标受到人们的普遍赞同¾但只有在遥远的未来才有可能实现。


To the surprise of many, Europe demonstrated great determination to ensure that the single currency became a reality.	令很多人惊讶的是，欧洲下了很大决心，确保单一货币能够成为现实。


A single monetary policy for a currency area comprising 11 – and later 12 – countries, each with a sovereign national government, was something entirely new.	在11、后来是12个有着各自主权政府的国家组成的货币区域中实行单一的货币政策是一个全新的挑战。


Would it be compatible with autonomous national fiscal policies?	单一货币政策能否和自治国的财政政策相吻合？


Given the decentralized nature of the system, would national interests distort the conduct of monetary policy?	在如此分散的体系中，国家利益会不会扭曲货币政策？


I see several reasons underlying the ECB’s success in implementing a supranational monetary policy – and thus in firmly establishing the euro’s stability.	我认为欧洲央行能成功推行超越国界的货币政策、维护欧元稳定主要有以下几个原因。


First, the ECB’s mandate – enshrined in the Maastricht Treaty – is to deliver and maintain price stability.	首先，《马斯特里赫特条约》规定，欧洲央行要实现并保持物价的稳定。


Focusing on the goal of maintaining a low and stable rate of inflation is the best contribution that monetary policy can make to economic welfare, sustainable growth, and job creation.	全力实现稳定和降低通货膨胀率是货币政策对经济发展、可持续增长和创造就业机会所能做出的最大贡献。


Second, the Treaty made the ECB perhaps  the  most independent central bank in the world.	其次，《条约》使得欧洲央行成了世界上最独立的中央银行。


The political temptation is always there to resort to inappropriate monetary expansions that bring temporary relief at the expense of harming longer-term growth.	以牺牲长远发展为代价借助不恰当的货币扩张牟取一时之利，这样的政治诱惑永远存在。


Institutional independence has allowed the central bank to conduct its monetary policy in a consistent manner, insulated from short-term political influences.	机构上的独立性使得央行能不受短期政治因素的影响，坚持推行长期连贯的货币政策。


Admittedly, the ECB’s first years were a “baptism of fire.”	必须承认，欧洲央行在最初几年经历了"火的洗礼。


Blessed at the start with a very low inflation rate in the euro area, the common currency soon faced a series of one-off shocks.	"欧元开始时恰逢通货膨胀率很低，但很快就碰到了一系列突发问题。


The biggest impact initially came from sharply rising oil prices and later from a rapidly weakening exchange rate, which led to a sharp rise in import prices.	开始时最猛烈的冲击来自油价的一路上涨，后来又碰到了汇率的快速下跌和由此带来的进口价格上涨。


By the end of 2000, oil prices had risen to levels not seen since the beginning of the 1990’s.	2000年底，油价已经涨到了20世纪90年代初以来从未有过的水平。


These shocks were naturally beyond the ECB’s control.	这些冲击显然不是欧洲央行所能控制的。


The policy response, however, required preventing these shocks from becoming entrenched in medium to long-term inflation expectations.	但却需要它来采取对策，防止不利因素潜伏下来，带来长期通胀的隐忧。


In this context – and in view of the robust economic growth recorded in 1999 and 2000, the still-booming stock markets, and the continued accumulation of excess liquidity – the ECB’s Governing Council progressively tightened policy, thereby keeping upward risks to price stability from materializing.	考虑到这些因素¾和1999、2000年经济的迅猛增长，还有持续繁荣的股市和流动性过剩的不断积累¾欧洲央行管理委员会逐渐收紧货币政策，从而防止了物价的上涨成为现实。


A bigger challenge came with the protracted stock market slowdown, the terrorist attacks on the United States in 2001, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.	更大的挑战来自于股市持续下降，2001年美国遭到恐怖袭击，以及阿富汗和伊拉克战争的爆发。


These events hindered the global economy by thwarting confidence and momentum.	这些事件影响了人们的信心和积极性，阻碍了全球经济向前发展。


Another period of excessive pessimism arose a year ago.	另一个过度悲观期出现在一年前。


In the summer of 2003, public debate and market sentiment in the euro area were influenced by Japan’s protracted deflation and the expectation of a possibly severe disinflationary process in America.	2003年夏天，欧元区的公众辩论和市场观点受到了日本长期通货紧缩和美国预期中严格制止通货膨胀措施的影响。


Some observers saw a risk of sustained deflation in the euro area as well.	有些观察家认为欧元区也存在出现持续紧缩的危险。


Our assessment was different.	但我们的估计却有所不同。


Inflation in the euro area was then slightly above 2%.	欧元区的通货膨胀稍高于2%。


Given the movements in the euro’s exchange rate in previous months and sluggish growth in the euro area, we expected that inflation rates would decline, but only to levels close to 2%.	考虑到前几个月欧元汇率的走向和欧元区经济的缓慢发展，我们预计通货膨胀率会略有下降，而后会在2%左右徘徊。


Indeed, our monetary analysis suggested that the risk of protracted deflation was negligible.	实际上，货币分析表明长期紧缩的危险几乎可以忽略。


So we did not overreact.	因此我们并没有采取过分的措施。


We continued to guide monetary policy by our assessment of the risks to price stability over the medium term.	我们继续根据对中期物价稳定风险的判断指导我们的货币政策。


This medium-term orientation paid off.	这样的中期取向收到了很好的效果。


Fears of euro-area deflation soon vanished and an incipient recovery started later in 2003.	对欧元区经济紧缩的忧虑迅速消失，2003年后半年又开始了初步的恢复。


Several lessons can be learned from these episodes.	从这里我们可以学到很多东西。


First, in all cases we remained clearly focused on the mandate of price stability.	首先，在任何情况下我们都把重点放在了保持物价的稳定。


Second, we kept a steady hand, guided by our medium-term orientation, while eschewing oversimplified diagnostics and mechanistic reactions to a few indicators.	其次，我们在中期目标的指导下保持着稳定的货币政策，避免了对若干指数变化做出过于简单的判断和机械的反应。


Third, we aimed at guiding markets and inspiring confidence in monetary policy, thereby helping to stabilize the economy by keeping inflation expectations anchored at levels compatible with our definition of price stability.	第三，我们把引导市场和鼓励信心作为货币政策的目标，从而使对通货膨胀的预期与我们对价格稳定的判断互相适应，进而起到稳定经济的作用。


So the brief history of the ECB’s monetary policy is already a success story.	因此欧洲央行短短的货币政策史已经成了成功的典范。


Most of the initial uncertainties and concerns – and, to a large extent, the skepticism – have been dispelled.	最初的疑虑和担心¾很大程度上还有人们曾经有过的怀疑¾都已经烟消云散。


A still relatively young institution – and the common currency that it manages – has quickly gained public and global confidence.	一个依然年轻的机构¾以及它所管理的共同货币¾已经迅速取得了公众和世界的信赖。


A current indicator is that the world’s central banks are holding an increasing share of their foreign-exchange reserves in euros rather than US dollars.	这体现在世界各国的中央银行已经越来越多地使用欧元、而不是美元，作为他们各自的外汇储备。


The main question now is whether the ECB will be able to sustain its hard-won reputation following enlargement of the euro zone in coming years.	现在的主要问题是：随着欧元区域的不断扩大，欧洲央行能否在未来几年内保住自己来之不易的良好声誉。


Indeed, when the ECB was established, some observers raised concerns even then about possible inefficiencies resulting from its supposedly outsized Governing Council and about possible distortions in its deliberations due to national considerations.	实际上从成立之日起，有些观察家就对它超大的管理委员会可能带来的效率低下和不同国家利益可能造成的政策扭曲提出了质疑。


However, these concerns were misplaced.	但这些质疑都没有根据。


So are concerns about the effect of further enlargement of the euro area.	进一步扩大欧元区引发的忧虑也是如此。


The voting rules unanimously approved by the Governing Council and adopted by the European Council in early 2003 have prepared the ECB well.	2003年上半年管理委员会全票通过并被欧盟委员会采纳的投票规则已经让欧洲央行做好了充分的准备。


All Governors, whatever their voting rights, will continue to attend meetings of the Governing Council and to participate fully in its discussions.	所有委员，无论投票权限如何，都会继续出席管理委员会会议，并且充分地参与讨论。


Furthermore, the “one member, one vote” principle will remain valid and apply to all members exercising a voting right. Thus, the voting system is sufficiently robust to accommodate up to 27 euro-area members.	除此以外，在所有行使投票权的成员中将严格实行"一人一票"制，这也使得投票系统充满活力，可以容纳欧元区的多达27个成员国。


Moreover, the new voting system is transparent and, above all, automatic, thereby reinforcing the ECB’s independence.	此外，新的投票系统不仅透明，而且完全实现了自我调节，因此更加凸显了欧洲央行的独立性。


This will facilitate the conduct of monetary policy by reducing uncertainty and bolstering credibility still further.	这也通过消除不确定因素和进一步加强可信度促进了货币政策的行使。


As the world has learned, credibility and reliability are the ECB’s two most important attributes.	正如世界各国所了解的那样，可信度和可靠度是欧洲央行两个最为重要的特色。


The Euro in a Shrinking Zone	身陷萎缩地带的欧元


LONDON – The recent European Union summit was a disaster.	发自伦敦——最近那场欧盟峰会简直是一场灾难。


Both Britain and Germany played the wrong game: British Prime Minister David Cameron isolated Britain from Europe, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel isolated the eurozone from reality.	会上英国和德国都出错了牌：英国首相大卫·卡梅伦把英国从欧洲孤立了出来，而德国总理默克尔则让欧元区完全脱离了现实。


Had Cameron brought an economic-growth agenda to the summit, he would have been fighting for something real, and would not have lacked allies.	如果卡梅伦手里有一份经济发展议程的话，那么他就能在会上争取某些实实在在的东西，因此也不会缺少盟友。


As it was, he fully accepted Merkel’s austerity agenda – which his own government is implementing independently – and chose to veto proposals for a new European treaty to protect the City of London.	但一如既往，他全盘接受了默克尔的经济紧缩议程——因为他的政府早就自顾自地实施该议程了——并为了保护伦敦金融城而选择否决一个新的欧洲条约。


This cheered up the Euroskeptics in Cameron’s Conservative Party, but it offered nothing to counter the lethal medicine prescribed by Germany’s Iron Lady.	此举取悦了卡梅伦所属保守党内部的欧洲怀疑主义者，却对德国铁娘子所开出的致命药方无所作为。


The agreement reached in Brussels forecloses any possibility of Keynesian demand management to fight recession.	在布鲁塞尔达成的协议排除了任何利用凯恩斯式需求管理手段来对抗衰退的可能性。


“Structural” budget deficits would be limited to 0.5% of GDP, with (as yet undisclosed) penalties for violators.	“结构性”预算赤字将被限制在GDP的0. 5%以下，凡违反此条者都将受到（细节尚未公开）的惩罚。


This is the wrong cure for the eurozone crisis.	然而对欧元区危机来说这是一个错误的疗法。


The Merkel doctrine holds that the crisis is the result of government profligacy, so only a “hard” balanced-budget rule can prevent such crises from recurring.	默克尔教条认为危机爆发的原因正是政府的挥霍无度，因此只有用“严厉”的预算平衡规定才能防止危机再度发生。


But Merkel’s analysis is utterly wrong.	但默克尔的分析却是大错特错的。


It was not deficit spending by governments that fueled the economic collapse of 2007-2008, but excessive lending by banks.	因为推动2007-2008年经济崩溃的并不是政府的赤字消费，而是银行的过度借贷。


Government’s mounting debts have been a response to the economic downturn, not its cause.	而堆积如山的政府债务其实并不是经济下滑的原因，而是其后果。


What ought to have been hard-wired into the EU’s institutional structure was not permanent fiscal austerity, but tough financial regulation.	因此应该强力注入欧盟政治架构的不是长期财政紧缩，而是严厉的金融管制。


Of this there is little sign.	不过我们却很少看到这样的动作。


More immediately important is the failure of the proposed “fiscal union” to do anything for European recovery.	更紧迫的则是原本提出的“财政联盟”在欧洲复苏方面毫无建树。


The figures are grim: before the summit, the European Central Bank slashed its eurozone GDP growth forecast for 2012 from 1.3% to 0.3%.	数字是残酷的：在峰会之前，欧洲央行把2012年的欧元区GDP增长预期从1. 3%大幅调低到0.


That is almost certainly optimistic.	3%。 这看上似乎还算是乐观了。


In fact, the eurozone will contract in the first half of next year – and probably in the second half, because of the deficit-cutting policies now being pursued – placing further pressure on banks and sovereigns.	事实上欧元区经济将在明年上半年出现萎缩，甚至会延续到下半年，这都归因于当前正在推行的赤字削减政策——该政策也进一步增加了银行和主权国家身上的压力。


The reason why recovery from the crash of 2007-2008 has been so anemic is straightforward. When an economy shrinks, government debt grows automatically, because its revenues decline and its expenses rise.	而2007-2008年危机后的复苏之所以如此无力原因很简单：当一个经济体萎缩之时，政府负债自然会增加，因为收入下降且支出上升。


When it cuts spending, its debt grows even more, because its cuts cause the economy to shrink further.	而当它开始削减支出的时候，债务规模会变得更大，因为这种削减使得经济进一步萎缩。


This makes the government more, not less, likely to default.	这也使得政府出现债务违约的可能性非但未能减少，反而还增大了。


In the eurozone, most government debt is held by private banks.	在欧元区，大多数政府债务都由私人银行持有。


As this debt increases, the value of banks’ assets falls.	随着债务不断累积，银行的资产价值也一路下滑。


So the crisis of the sovereigns engulfs the banks.	因此主权国家的危机吞噬了银行。


To put weakened governments on iron rations, as Merkel did, was to make a financial crisis inevitable.	而像默克尔那样把本已积弱的政府套上严格配额的锁链只能让经济危机变得无法避免。


To continue to preach salvation through austerity as the economy declines and banks collapse is to repeat the classic mistake of German Chancellor Heinrich Brüning in 1930-1932.	在经济下滑银行破产之下还念叨着那套以紧缩求救赎的说教只会重复1930-1932年间德国总理海因里希·布吕宁所犯下的经典错误。


To be sure, the eurozone needs more than a bailout.	可以确定的是，欧元区需要的不仅仅是一次拯救。


The periphery needs to recover competitiveness, and some have taken heart from the Mediterranean countries’ shrinking trade deficits – the structural trade imbalances within the eurozone are correcting themselves, they say.	其外围国家需要恢复竞争力，其中某些国家也从地中海国家不断收窄的贸易赤字上看到了希望——据他们说这是因为欧元区内部的结构性贸易不平衡正在自我修复。


Unfortunately, these corrections are not based on increased exports, but on declining imports, owing to depressed levels of economic activity.	但不幸的是，这些修复并非基于出口增长，而是源自于经济活动受抑制所导致的进口下滑


The idea that a country can achieve a trade surplus by importing nothing is as fanciful as the idea that a government can repay its debt by starving itself of revenue.	那种国家可以通过停止进口来实现贸易顺差的想法就跟政府可以通过不消费来还清负债的想法同样不切实际。


One person’s spending is another person’s income.	一个人的支出就是另一个人的收入。


In insisting that its main trade partners cut their spending, Merkel is cutting Germany off from the main sources of its own growth.	坚持让本国主要贸易伙伴削减支出的默克尔其实就是在切断德国的主要增长源头。


So, will the single currency survive?	那么欧元这个单一货币是否能坚持下来？


Two policies that might, in combination, save it are off the agenda. The first is quantitative easing (printing money) on a heroic scale.	出人意料的是有两个结合起来或许能拯救欧元的政策却被排除在了议程之外。


The ECB should be empowered to buy any amount of Greek, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese government bonds needed to drive down their yield to near the German rate.	欧洲央行应当被授权购买足够数额的希腊、意大利，西班牙和葡萄牙政府债券，最终使得这些债券的收益能与德国政府债券相近。


This might stimulate real growth through several channels: by reducing lending rates, by raising the nominal value of public and private assets, and by weakening the euro against the dollar and other currencies.	此举或许能通过多种渠道刺激实体经济增长：比如降低贷款利率； 提升公共或者私人资产的名义价值；


But the effects of quantitative easing on economic activity are uncertain, and such an inflationary policy might well invite retaliation from Europe’s trading partners.	以及让欧元相对于美国或者其他货币贬值。 但量化宽松对经济活动的影响无法确定，而且这种通胀政策可能引发贸易伙伴的反弹。


That is why quantitative easing should be run in conjunction with a eurozone-wide investment program designed to modernize the creaking infrastructure of eastern and southern Europe.	而这也是为何��化宽松政策必须与一个涉及全欧元区的东南欧老旧基础设施升级投资项目相结合的原因。


Capital spending by governments, unlike current spending, can be self-financing through user charges.	政府的资本支出（而非经常支出）可以通过向用户收费收回投资。


But, even if it is not, well-chosen public investment produces high returns: new roads reduce transportation costs, and new hospitals produce a healthier workforce.	即便无法收费，精心选择的公共投资也会产生的高额回报：新道路降低了交通成本，新医院则能确保整个劳动力群体更加健康。


An institution, the European Investment Bank (EIB), already exists to carry out such a program.	一个名为欧洲投资银行的机构已经开始执行类似项目。


It should be recapitalized on a sufficient scale to offset the contractionary effects of Europe’s national deficit-reduction programs.	而它必须得到足够规模的二次注资才能抵消掉欧洲各国赤字削减项目的负面相应。


Quantitative easing, combined with public investment, would impart the growth impetus that the eurozone sorely needs to bring about a gradual reduction in its aggregate debt burden.	而与公共投资相结合的量化宽松将给予欧元区急需的增长动力，并借此逐渐削平那些堆积如山的债务。


But it is almost certain that neither policy, much less both, will be implemented.	但几乎可以确定的是这两个政策都不可能分别得到实施，更别说同时推行了。


The ECB is stealthily buying government bonds on the secondary market, but its new governor, Mario Draghi, insists that such intervention is temporary, limited, and intended solely to “restore the functioning of monetary transmission channels.”	欧洲央行正在二级市场暗地里买进各国政府债券，但它的新行长马里奥·德拉吉却坚称这种介入行为只是暂时，有限且仅仅是为了“修复货币流动渠道的功能”。


No one at the recent EU summit suggested making the EIB an engine of growth. So the bleeding will go on.	本次峰会上也没有人建议将欧洲投资银行变成增长的引擎，因此失血状况仍在继续。


This means that the eurozone is beyond saving; the euro will survive, but the zone will shrink.	这意味着欧元区无法被拯救； 欧元将幸存，但欧元区将萎缩。


The only question is the scale, timing, and manner of its breakup.	唯一的问题就是欧元区究竟会在何种范围，什么时间以及何种方式走向崩溃。


Greece, and probably other Mediterranean countries, will default and regain the freedom to print money and devalue their exchange rates.	希腊或者其他地中海国家将发生债务违约，并重新获得印刷钞票并压低汇率的自由。


This will send shock waves throughout the world. But sometimes shock waves are needed to break the ice and start the water flowing again.	这将对全世界造成冲击，但有时也正是需要一些冲击波来打破冰层，这样水才能重新涌出来。


The European Banking Union?	欧洲银行联盟？


MUNICH – In blatant violation of the Maastricht Treaty, the European Commission has come forward with one bailout plan after another for Europe’s distressed economies.	慕尼黑— 欧洲委员会公然践踏马斯特里赫特条约，一次又一次地制定援助计划挽救欧洲受困经济体。


Now it wants to socialize not only government debt by introducing Eurobonds, but also banking debt by proclaiming a “banking union.”	如今，欧洲委员会不但欲用欧元债券将国债社会化，还试图搞一个“银行联盟”把银行债券也社会化。


Socializing bank debt is both unjust and will result in a future misallocation of resources.	银行债务社会化是不公平的，而且会导致未来资源配置失配。


Socialization of bank debt across borders implies that a country’s private borrowing costs are artificially reduced below market rates, as insurance (in the form of credit-default swaps) is provided free of charge by other countries.	跨境银行债务社会化意味着一国的私人借贷成本将被人为压低在市场利率以下，因为债务保险（即信用违约互换）将由其他国家免费提供。


Thus, capital flows from the core to the periphery would continue to exceed the optimal amount, undermining growth for Europe as a whole.	因此，核心国向外围国的资本流将持续超过最有水平，阻碍整个欧洲的经济增长。


History offers countless examples of the misallocation of resources that can result from socialization of bank debt.	历史上，由银行债务社会化导致资源适配的例子数不胜数。


One is the 1980’s savings and loan crisis in the United States, which cost US taxpayers more than $100 billion.	其中之一是20世纪80年代美国储贷银行危机，这场危机让美国纳税人付出了1000亿美元的代价。


Under the umbrella of common deposit insurance, US savings banks made a “gamble for resurrection” – borrowing excessively from their depositors and lending the money out to risky enterprises, knowing that potential profits could be paid out as dividends to shareholders while potential losses would be socialized.	在共同存款保险的保护下，美国储蓄银行进行了一场“复活豪赌”——从存款者手中借入过多资金，然后放贷给高风险企业，它们知道，潜在利润可以用于发放股利回报股东，而潜在损失可以社会化。


In other words, private profits were generated out of socially wasteful activities.	换句话说，私人利润来自从社会角度看纯属浪费的行为。


And essentially the same happened with US subprime mortgage lending and with the Spanish banking system in the 2000’s.	美国次贷危机和本世纪初西班牙银行系统危机也是这样。


In both cases, banks took excessive risks in the expectation – eventually vindicated – that governments would bail them out.	在这两次危机中，银行承担了过度的风险，因为它们料定——最终事实也正是如此——政府会出手挽救它们。


Spanish banks speculated on a continuing increase in real-estate prices, which would bring large capital gains to their customers.	西班牙银行将赌注押在房地产价格会不断上涨，这将为其客户带来丰厚的资本利得。


Indeed, they often lent homeowners more than 100% of the underlying property’s value.	事实上，它们经常给屋主发放数量超过物业价值100%的贷款。


To compensate for the damage that their reckless behavior caused, they received €303 billion ($378 billion) in extra credit through Target, the European Central Bank's interbank payment settlement system, and can now expect a further €100 billion in help from the European Financial Stability Facility.	为了补偿这一鲁莽贷款行为可能的伤害，欧洲央行向它们提供了3030亿欧元的额外Target信用，如今，欧洲金融稳定基金（European Financial Stability Facility）将在提供1000亿欧元。


Much of this money will never return.	这笔钱中的很大一部分将会打水漂。


Debt-equity swaps would be a much better way to recapitalize the banks.	债务-股权交换将是一种更好的银行重组方式。


Rather than imposing the costs of the ECB’s and EFSF’s losses on European taxpayers, the banks’ creditors could give up some of their claims in exchange for receiving shares from the banks’ owners.	银行债权人将不必让欧洲纳税人承担欧洲央行和EFSF的损失，可以放弃一些债权，换取银行股份。


Debt-equity swaps rescue the banks without rescuing their shareholders.	债务-股权交换可以拯救银行，而不会去拯救银行股东。


Ideally, bank creditors would not lose money, because their fixed-interest claims would be converted into bank shares of similar value.	在理想状态下，银行债权人不会损失，因为它们的固定收益债权将转换为价值相当的银行股份。


This would be the case as long as the banks’ losses remained smaller than their equity capital.	只要银行损失不超过股权资本，债权人就不会亏钱。


A true loss would be inflicted on a bank’s creditors only if the write-off losses on toxic mortgage loans exceeded the bank’s equity.	只有当有毒按揭贷款减记损失超过了银行股本，债权人才会损失。


But, even then, it would be better for creditors to bear the loss than for taxpayers to do so, because this would encourage more cautious lending in the future.	但是，即便如此，让债权人承担损失也比让纳税人承担好，因为这会鼓励未来审慎借贷。


Socializing public debt is already posing a risk to the still-stable eurozone countries.	公共债务社会化已经给仍然稳定的欧元区国��带来了风险。


To do the same thing with bank debt could pull hitherto sound economies into the abyss, because bank’s balance sheets are much larger than the volume of government debt.	对银行债务也如法炮制将把目前仍然坚挺的经济体推向深渊，因为银行资产负债表规模比国债大得多。


In Spain, the public debt-to-GDP ratio is 69%, but the debt of the Spanish banking system totals 305% of GDP, or about €3.3 trillion – about as much as the combined public debt of all five crisis-stricken eurozone countries.	在西班牙，公共债务-GDP比率为69%，但其银行系统债务总量高达GDP的305%，即3. 3万亿欧元，相当于所有五个饱受危机摧残的欧元区国家公债总和。


While the enormous volume of the bank debt implies that governments should shy away from socializing banking risks, it also suggests that only the banks’ creditors could reasonably be asked to foot the bill without being overburdened.	银行债务数量之巨意味着政府应该避免将其风险社会化，也意味着只有银行债权人可以被合理要求承担债务又不至于负担过重。


Indeed, if, as some believe, only a fraction of the banks’ equity is at risk, the potential debt-equity swaps would be minuscule.	事实上，有人认为，只有小部分银行股权是有风险的，潜在债务-股权交换量非常有限。


Spanish banks have 7% equity capital on average on their balance sheets.	西班牙银行的平均股权资本-资产比率为7%。


Thus, a debt-equity swap of less than 7.5% of the creditors’ investment would be enough to compensate for the banks’ losses.	因此，将债权人投资额的不到7. 5%换为股权就足以弥补银行损失。


And, even if the banks’ private depositors, whose claims are 39% of the aggregate balance sheet, were excluded, the debt-equity swap necessary to compensate for a loss of up to 100% of the equity would be less than 12% of the creditors’ investment volume.	此外，即使把银行的私人存款者（其债权占银行资产负债表总规模的39%）排除在外，弥补100%股权损失所需要的债务-股权交换量也不会超过债权人投资额的12%。


Debt-equity swaps have been used successfully in many cases, and they follow from normal bankruptcy procedures.	债务-股权交换已有大量成功应用，可以在常规破产程序后进行。


Apart from avoiding the excess burden and injustice of taxation, they also have the benefit of inducing banks’ owners to choose a prudent investment strategy, while persuading creditors to scrutinize and select carefully the banks to which they want to lend.	除了避免征税负担和不公之外，这样做还能诱导银行所有人采取更为审慎的投资策略，同时促使债权人仔细调查和选择债务银行。


The care taken in augmenting and preserving the wealth that current generations inherited from their ancestors is the ultimate reason for economic growth and capitalism’s success.	扩大和保护当代人从祖先手中获得的财富是经济增长和资本主义成功的终极要求。


Massive government interventions during the crisis have undermined this principle, and have probably already destroyed much of the inherited wealth.	危机期间的大规模政府干预已经破坏了这一原则，可能也已经毁掉了很大一部分先人遗产。


It is time to heed the fundamental laws of economics and put a stop to the imprudence that those charged with fighting the crisis have been allowed to get away with.	认识基本经济定律、停止为阻挡危机而实行的不审慎行为刻不容缓。


Europe needs no banking union beyond a common regulatory system.	欧洲不需要在共同监管制度之外在搞一个银行联盟。


The European Economic Model Lives	欧洲的经济模式仍具活力


Back in the early 1990's, American officials like me who were making long-term forecasts for the Clinton administration cautioned that it would be rash to forecast an average long-run growth rate of more than 2.5% per year - and that actual growth might turn out to be even slower.	在上世纪90年代初，像我这样的美国官员在为克林顿政府作长期预测时都警告说长期平均2. 5%的年增长率预测过于轻率-实际的增长率可能比这一数字还要低。


Now we look back at a decade during which the American economy has grown at an average rate of 3.4% per year.	现在回顾过去的十年，美国经济的平均年增长率达到了3. 4%。


Indeed, the United States today is 9% richer than we would have dared forecast a decade ago, and that is true despite labor-market slack and thus the largest production shortfalls below potential output in two decades.	的确，如今美国的富裕程度比我们10年以前最大胆的预测还要高出9%， 而且这还是在劳务市场疲软的情况下实现的。 其结果就是20年来美国的实际产出以最大差额低于潜在产能。


In America, the "new economy" has proven to be real, and there is every reason to think that growth in the next decade will be faster than it was in the past.	在美国，"新经济"是实实在在的，并且人们完全有理由相信未来10年的经济增长速度会再创新高。


The acceleration of US economic growth in the late 1990's posed a puzzle for those of us who looked across the Atlantic at Western Europe: where was Europe's "new economy"?	把美国经济在上世纪90年代末的提速与大洋彼岸的西欧对照令人迷惑：欧洲当时的"新经济"究竟在何方？


We could see it in Scandinavia, and in scattered pockets elsewhere, but the strong imprint of improved computer and communications technologies on the growth rates of output and productivity economy-wide seemed to be missing.	我们在北欧和其它一些零星的地方能看到新经济的火花，但从整个经济领域来看，计算机和通讯技术的进步似乎并没有对生产量和生产率的增长产生强大的推动作用。


Europe seemed to be falling further and further behind the US.	当时的欧洲似乎正被美国越抛越远。


Yet today, if we look at transatlantic comparisons, Western Europe appears to be doing much better than one would expect if one were to judge from the past decade's business press.	然而今天，如果我们再将大西洋两岸的情况进行对比，从过去十年商业新闻报道中所提供的信息来看，西欧的表现似乎比我们预期的要好。


Western Europe's productivity per hour worked, for example, is now only 10% or so below America's.	例如西欧每工作小时的劳动生产率现在只比美国低10%。


Northwestern University economist Robert Gordon points out several interesting features of America's GDP that should give cheerleaders of the US model and critics of Europe cause for greater circumspection.	美国西北大学的经济学家罗伯特戈登指出了美国GDP中的几个有趣之处。 这些特点应该让美国模式的鼓吹者和欧洲模式的批评者们都有理由更谨慎。


For example, Americans must buy cars because public transport is so lousy.	例如，由于公共交通太糟糕，所以美国人不得不买车。


The value of the cars is calculated in American GDP, but European public-transport systems are counted not at their value to passengers but as a cost to government.	车辆的价值被算入了美国的GDP， 但欧洲的公交系统却不是以它们对乘客的价值来计算而是被算做了政府的成本。


Similarly, Americans keep two million of their fellow citizens in jail: the cost of building the prisons and paying the jailers is also included in GDP.	同样，美国将两百万人关在监狱里：建造监狱的成本和狱警的薪酬也被计入GDP。


Professor Gordon also points out that America's more extreme climate - colder winters (save in Florida and California) and hotter summers (save in Washington, Oregon, and California) - must spend more on heating and cooling.	戈登教授还指出美国更极端的气候-更寒冷的冬天（除了佛罗里达和加利福尼亚）和更炎热的夏天（除了华盛顿、俄勒冈和加利福尼亚）--必然使取暖和制冷的支出增加。


The net result of all these calculations?	所有这些计算的最终结果如何呢？


Western Europeans work some 25% less than Americans, yet they have a level of social welfare (including climate) that is only around 15% lower than Americans, and they have more equal income distributions and lower poverty rates as well.	西欧人的工作量比美国人少25%，而他们的社会福利（包括气候）水平却只比美国人低约15%，且他们的收入分配更平等，贫困率也更低。


From this perspective, Western Europe appears to have at least as good a claim to the title of "Good Society" as does the US.	从这个意义上讲，西欧至少和美国一样能将自己称为"优良社会"。


Moreover, the economy-wide productivity gap between the US and Western Europe does not appear to be widening very rapidly, if at all.	另外，从整个经济领域来看，美国和西欧之间的生产率差距即使存在的话也似乎并没有急剧扩大。


Western European productivity growth almost matches America's, suggesting that the new economy is coming to Western Europe, only quietly and with much less fanfare than in America.	西欧的生产率增长几乎与美国旗鼓相当，这说明新经济也正在西欧发展，只不过较为平静，不像美国那样大鸣大放罢了。


Of course, all favorable judgments of the state of the Western European economy must come with fine print.	当然，所有对西欧经济形势的积极判断都必须加以注解。


European unemployment, for example, appears to be half again as high as in the US.	例如，欧洲的失业率似乎比美国高出50%。


Labor force participation is lower - and a substantial part of that lower labor force participation is not the result of untrammeled choice but of discouraged workers and institutions that make it very difficult for households that have every adult at work.	劳动力的参与率也比美国低-其原因在很大程度上并不是人们的自愿选择而是气馁的工人和机构使家庭很难让所有成年成员都外出就业。


Moreover, European labor productivity figures are inflated by the fact that potential workers who would be less productive are much less likely to hold any jobs at all.	再者，欧洲劳动生产率的数字被夸大了。 这是因为劳动效率较低的潜在劳动者的就业机会要少很多。


Looming over everything is the impending demographic crisis of Western Europe's social-insurance state as its population ages.	而笼罩一切的阴云则是随着人口老龄化而日渐逼近的西欧社会保险的人口统计危机。


But where is the country or region without serious economic worries and deep structural problems?	但哪一个国家和地区没有自身严重的经济困扰和深刻的结构性问题呢？


During the late 1990's, the US had an amazingly long run of economic good luck, assisted by some very good institutions and some quite good economic policies.	上个世纪90年代末期，美国在一些得力的机构和良好的经济政策的协助下，取得了令人惊讶的长期经济景气。


By 2000, European senior bureaucrats began to dread the approach of each international meeting as the likely occasion for yet another lecture by the Americans on how Europe needed to become much more like America right now.	以至于到了2000年，欧洲的许多高层官员都开始害怕国际会议，因为好为人师的美国人会不断利用这种场合宣讲欧洲现在应该怎样步美国的后尘。


Thus, it is important to note how little - if any - ground America has gained relative to Europe in the past decade according to the yardstick of social welfare.	所以，必须通过社会福利的尺度说明美国即使在过去十年里相对欧洲取得了一些优势，这些优势也是微乎其微。


Learning needs to go both ways.	借鉴应该是双向的。


The European Museum	欧洲博物馆


In the late nineteenth century, Europe viewed Asia mainly as either a source of inspiration for its artists or a focus of imperial ambition.	19世纪末，欧洲人看亚洲主要是将其作为欧洲艺术家们的灵感来源，抑或是实现他们帝国野心的主要目标。


Asians, for their part, viewed Europe as either a model of modernity, as in Meiji Japan, or a barometer of decay, as in China.	而对于亚洲人，欧洲要不是现代化的楷模，如明治维新时期的日本；


A century later, the Japanese economic miracle had transformed the image of at least a small part of Asia in European eyes into a place of rapid technological and industrial progress.	要不就如中国人所认为的，是腐朽没落的晴雨表。 一个世纪后，日本的经济奇迹令至少亚洲的一小部分在欧洲人的眼中变为科技与工业迅速发展的地方。


Now, in the first years of the twenty-first century, the perception of Europe in Asia and of Asia in Europe is changing dramatically, as Asia’s economies boom while the European Union finds itself mired in a crisis of identity and confidence.	现在，21世纪的头10年，随着亚洲经济的崛起以及欧盟的身份和信任危机，亚洲人眼中的欧洲以及欧洲人眼中的亚洲都有了巨大的改变。


Prominent Asians, such as former Singaporean leader Lee Kuan Yew, are now warning Europeans that if they continue on their current course, Europe will rapidly become irrelevant for anything other than tourism and high-end real estate.	亚洲的著名人士，如新加坡前领导人李光耀就警告欧洲人如果继续现在的道路，欧洲除了旅游业以及高尚私人宅第外将一无是处。


A prominent Chinese businessman who divides his time between Hong-Kong and London was even more specific.	这位居住于香港和伦敦两地的著名中国商人说得很具体。


At a private gathering of top business and political leaders in Paris a few weeks ago, he said, “You Europeans are becoming a Third World country, you spend time on the wrong subjects –the constitution, the welfare state, the pensions crisis – and you systematically give the wrong answers to the questions you raise.”	几周前在巴黎一次由商界要人和政界领导人参加的私人聚会上，他说，“你们欧洲正在沦为第三世界国家，你们将时间花在错误的问题上¾¾宪法、福利状况、养老金危机¾¾你们对自己提出的问题给出了系统性的错误答案。 ”


Europeans’ views of Asia in general, and China in particular, are more complex and swing from lucid adjustment to a new and respected competitor to pure ideological rejection.	欧洲人对亚洲的普遍观点，特别是对中国，就更加复杂，并且在头脑清醒的改革者、新兴且令人尊敬的竞争对手以及完全的意识形态排斥间摇摆不定。


In May 1968, in France, the students – or some of them, at least – who took to the streets to invent a new world were dreaming of Maoist China, a China in the midst of the brutal and senseless Cultural Revolution.	1968年5月，法国的学生们¾¾至少是其中的一部分人¾¾他们走上街头打算创建一个新世界。 他们梦想着毛泽东时代的中国，那个处在残酷且失去理智的文化大革命中的中国。


Their absurd and baroque infatuation was as much the product of ignorance of Mao’s crimes as it was the result of boredom in a prosperous society where unemployment was virtually nonexistent.	他们这种荒谬的巴洛克式的痴迷既是他们对毛泽东一无所知的产物，也是他们对自己这个繁荣社会，这个几乎看不到失业的社会所产生的一种厌倦。


Today, by contrast, their heirs are openly criticizing the Asian capitalist model.	相比之下，今天，这些人的后代们却在公开批评亚洲资本主义模式。


Yesterday China was an anti-capitalist lodestar for utopian revolutionaries; today it has become an ultra-liberal nemesis for a new generation of utopian reactionaries – the defenders of the status quo in Europe.	昨天，中国是乌托邦革命者们反对资本主义的指向标； 今天，它成为新一代乌托邦式反革命者们（主张维持欧洲现状者）心目中超自由主义带来的报应。


The student demonstrators in the streets of Paris recently don’t want to become like Chinese and Indians; they reject the logic of globalization and refuse to surrender hard-won social guarantees.	最近走上街头的示威学生们并不想成为中国和印度。 他们反对全球化的理念，拒绝放弃得来不易的社会保障。


European economic elites perceive China and India very differently.	欧洲经济巨头对中国和印度的看法却与此截然不同。


They are now fully aware that their slightly nostalgic post-colonial view of these countries as large export markets and deep reservoirs of cheap labor has become outdated.	他们现在已经充分认识到他们那略带怀旧意味的后殖民主义观点，那种将这些国家视为巨大出口市场以及廉价劳动力储备库的观点已经过时。


China and India have become genuine competitors who deserve respect, if not sheer awe.	中国和印度已经成为真正意义的竞争者，他们值得尊敬，如果不是纯粹的惧怕。


Quality, costs, and delivery times in auto manufacturing, for example, are reaching the European level.	以汽车制造业为例，他们的质量、成本、运送时间都已经达到欧洲的水平。


Europe retains an advantage in terms of pure science, as in the pharmaceutical industry, but emerging world-class companies, particularly in India, are increasingly able to recruit M.I.T. and Harvard graduates, while maintaining lower labor costs and thus global competitiveness.	欧洲在纯科学方面还保持着优势，比如制药工业，但新兴的世界级公司，特别是印度公司，越来越有能力招收MIT和哈佛毕业生。 但他们却依然保持着低廉的劳动力成本进而保持着国际竞争力。


Unfortunately, although European leaders recognize the Asian challenge, they have failed to use it as a reality test in the irresistible process of globalization and as a call to arms in social and economic terms.	不幸的是，尽管欧洲领导人认识到来自亚洲的挑战，他们并没有能够利用这一点作为不可阻挡的国际化进程的现实测试，或者在社会和经济方面警觉起来。


In fact, it would be fair to say that European politicians, with few exceptions, such as Tony Blair, have been slow to adjust their worldviews in accordance with the revolutionary pace of change in Asia.	事实上，可以公平地说，欧洲政治家们，除了托尼·布莱尔等少数人外，他们在观念转变上无法赶上亚洲革命性巨变的步伐。


Caught between their lack of long-term strategic vision and their obsession with short-term interests, Europe’s political leaders have largely failed to win the respect of their Asian counterparts, in contrast to European companies, which are faring much better in Asian eyes.	欧洲的政治领袖们缺乏长远战略眼光又痴迷于眼前利益，他们大多不能赢得其亚洲同僚的尊重。 相比之下，在亚洲人眼中，欧洲公司却更加受到青睐。


Of course, on a continent that has largely failed to bury its past and close the door to nationalist ghosts, the EU is also often regarded by Asians as a model of reconciliation, peace, and prosperity.	当然，欧洲大陆从未埋葬过自己的历史，也从未对民族主义魔头关上过大门。 但欧盟在亚洲人眼里依然是和谐、平静、繁荣的典范。


But if Europe’s performance continues to decline, would this perception survive?	但如果欧洲的表现持续低迷，那么这种观念还能延续下去吗？


Perhaps Asians would then come to regard the European model as a political version of Venice – a place to visit with nostalgia for its past glory and admiration for its museum-like quality.	也许亚洲会将欧洲人视作威尼斯的政治翻版¾¾一个带着怀旧心情去感伤昔日辉煌并瞻仰其博物馆般实质的地方。


The Great Bank Debate	银行大讨论


OXFORD – Christine Lagarde, the International Monetary Fund’s managing director, recently said of the unfinished agenda for global financial-sector reform: “To start, we need concrete progress with the too-important-to-fail conundrum.	牛津—IMF总裁拉加德最近在论及尚未完成的全球金融部门改革日程时说：“首先，我们需要在太重要而不能倒难题上取得真正的进展。


We need a global-level discussion of the pros and cons of direct restrictions on business models.”	我们需要一场全球水平的讨论，厘清商业模式直接限制的利弊。


Five years on from the start of the crisis, with the publication of the Liikanen report on European Union banking reform, that debate has finally begun.	”危机爆发已逾五年，随着关于欧盟银行改革的利卡宁（Liikanen）报告的发布，这一讨论终于开始了。


The Liikanen proposals have much in common with those made in 2011 by the United Kingdom’s Independent Commission on Banking (ICB), which I chaired.	利卡宁方案与2011年由我担任主席的英国独立银行委员会（Independent Commission on Banking，ICB）所提出的方案由诸多相同之处。 两组方案均强调需要实施相互关联的、将更强损失吸收能力与结构性改革相结合的一揽子措施。


Both sets of recommendations stress the importance of an interlocking package of measures that combine much greater loss-absorbency with structural reform.	两组方案均为这类改革做了相似的经济分析：将基本银行服务和投资银行风险隔离； 让破产更容易，从而更可信；


And both make the same economic case for such reforms: to insulate basic banking services from investment banking risks; to make resolution easier and thus more credible; to shield taxpayers from risks that belong in the private sector; and hence to ensure that banks’ risk-taking is subject to adequate market discipline.	让纳税人免担属于私人部门的风险； 以及（从而）确保银行风险承担行为须受充分的市场纪律的约束。


Moreover, both Liikanen and the ICB favor structured universal banking – legally separate entities with separate capital, management, and so forth – rather than calling for its demise, as urged by those who want to split commercial from investment banking fully.	此外，利卡宁和ICB均支持有组织的全能银行——以独立资本、独立管理等合法地经营独立实体——而不是应试图完全分离商业银行和投资银行者之要求取消全能银行。


For large banks, Liikanen would separate trading from deposit banking, while the ICB’s proposals, which are now incorporated in draft legislation in Britain, would ring-fence retail banking.	对大银行来说，利卡宁将让交易与存款银行业务分离，而ICB的方案——现在已被纳入英国法律草案中——将隔离零售银行业务。


This by itself is a distinction without a difference.	这本身并没有什么区别。


After all, a fence to protect the deer from the lions is the same as a fence to keep the lions away from the deer.	毕竟，设置篱笆将鹿和狮子隔开与设置篱笆将狮子和鹿分离是完全一样的。


Unlike their cousin the Volcker Rule, neither Liikanen nor the UK approach attempts to draw a line between types of trading.	与它们的表兄弟——沃克尔规则（Volcker Rule）不同，利卡宁和英国方案都不准备给交易类型划线。


Judging whether trading is proprietary might not quite require “windows into men’s souls” (which in another context Queen Elizabeth I wisely avoided), but America’s experience shows that it is difficult all the same.	鉴定交易是否属于自营也许并不要求“心灵的窗户”（这又是伊丽莎白一世巧妙地避免的另一种环境），但美国经验表明这同样困难。


Still, the Liikanen and UK designs are not identical.	除此之外，利卡宁与英国的设计就不一样了。


Nor should they be.	本应如此。


The UK has a much larger banking system relative to its economy’s size than does Europe as a whole – let alone the United States.	相对整个欧洲（更不用说美国了）英国银行系统相对经济规模的比重要大得多。


The UK’s system is exposed to different risks, which it is in Europe’s interest to have well managed.	英国银行系统暴露于不同的风险之下，好好地进行治理符合欧洲利益。


Moreover, Liikanen is not a one-size-fits-all approach, as it explicitly proposes powers to require wider separation, if needed, to ensure resolvability.	此外，利卡宁并不是包治百病的方案，比如，它明确建议，在必要时应有更大范围分离的权力以确保可破产性。


One clear difference, though, is that Liikanen, unlike the UK proposals, allows securities underwriting in deposit banks.	不过，一个显而易见的区别在于利卡宁允许存款银行从事证券承销业务，这在英国方案中是禁止的。


This contrasts with the US, even after the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act’s ban on affiliation between banks and companies engaged principally in underwriting securities.	这一点也和美国相悖，即使在禁止银行与主要从事证券营销业务的公司有瓜葛的格拉斯-斯蒂格尔禁令于1999年被取消之后也是如此。


And it sits oddly with separating trading and derivatives from deposit banking, since underwriting is akin to selling a large put option, and typically riskier than normal market-making.	这也和将交易和衍生品与存款银行业务分离格格不入，因为承销就好比是出售一大笔看跌期权，比通常的做市业务风险更大。


With underwriting on the trading side of the fence, the deposit bank could still supply the service to customers, but as a broker, not as a dealer.	承销业务属于篱笆靠交易的一面，这使得存款银行仍旧能够为客户提供服务，不过不是以经纪人的角色，而是以承销商的角色。


Underwriting belongs with the lions.	承销属于狮子阵营。


Aside from its implementation difficulties, there are good reasons not to introduce the Volcker rule, rather than the ICB/Liikanen proposals, in the UK and Europe.	除了实施困难，还有其他理由在英国和欧洲不引入沃克尔规则，而是使用ICB/利卡宁方案。


First, it does not do enough to shield retail banking from investment-banking risks, of which only a small share relate to proprietary trading.	首先，它不足以为零售银行业务隔离投资银行业务风险，后者只有一小部分与自营交易有关。


Second, the US has a very different banking system to begin with, including various regulations on how depository institutions can relate to affiliated trading entities.	其次，美国的银行系统自有其不同特点，包括关于存款机构如何才能与所属的交易实体相联系的诸多监管规定。


This suggests that a better question is whether to introduce the Volcker rule in addition to, rather than instead of, ring-fencing.	这表明，更好的问题是是否在隔离政策上加上沃克尔规则，而不是是否以沃克尔规则代替隔离政策。


In the interest of simplicity, I would say no.	长话短说，我的答案是否。


Enforcing total separation instead of ring-fencing would provide a stronger barrier, but at a potentially high cost, including a risk to financial stability.	强化总体分离而不是隔离将形成更严格的壁垒，但潜在成本也很高，包括金融稳定风险。


After all, full separation implies that resources from elsewhere in a given banking group are unavailable to address a retail-banking crisis resulting from, say, a slump in residential and commercial property prices.	毕竟，完全分离意味着存在于给定银行集团别处的资源无法被用于解决因为住房和商业地产价格下跌而导致的零售银行危机。


Such crises can happen.	这样的危机是有可能发生的。


So the ICB concluded that its reform package for the UK would achieve the main aims of full separation at a lower cost, and without creating the risk to financial stability that could come from having undiversified, correlated, stand-alone domestic retail banking. To be sure, the success of this approach depends on the fence staying strong.	因此ICB认为其英国改革方案能够以较低的成本达到完全分离的主要目标，同时还不会产生来自因孤立的国内零售银行变得多样化不足和相互关联导致的金融稳定风险。


But, at least for the UK and the rest of Europe, it is a key part of the overall reform package, along with much stronger capital and liquidity standards, loss-absorbent debt (including “bail-ins” by creditors), real resolvability, and so on. There is also the question of how to protect financial stability from risks arising from shadow banking, including the risk of contagion to traditional banking, which ring-fencing helps to contain.	银行结构性改革不能解决所有问题，但是，至少对英国和欧洲其他部分来说，这是整体改革计划的关键部分，其他还包括大大强化的资本和流动性标准、损失吸收债务（包括债权人“自救”（bail-in））、真正的可破产性等。


Structural reform is also fundamental to the moves toward a European banking union, for a union with well-capitalized and safely structured banks has much better prospects than one without.	结构性改革亦是迈向欧洲银行联盟的基础，在这个联盟中，资本充裕、结构安全的银行应该拥有更加美好的前景。


Otherwise, mutualization of contingent liabilities could exacerbate the too-important-to-fail problem.	否则的话，或有债务的共同化将恶化太重要而不能倒的问题。


Now that structural reform is explicitly on the agenda, the debate about European banking reform is entering a new phase.	结构性改革在日程中赫然在列，这意味着关于欧洲银行改革的讨论进入了新阶段。


But, as the IMF has stressed, the debate needs to go beyond Europe.	但是，正如IMF所强调的，这场讨论需要超越欧洲。


Moreover, it is more than a debate about public policy, because, in the post-crisis world, market incentives might point toward forms of separation between retail and investment banking.	此外，这也是一场超越公共政策的讨论，因为在后危机时代，市场激励可能会指向零售和投资银行业务的分离方式。


But market incentives surrounding various business models will remain distorted so long as taxpayers are liable for bank losses.	但只要纳税人需要为银行损失买单，围绕多种业务模式的市场激励就将继续被扭曲。


That provides all the more reason to get them off the hook via structural and other banking reforms.	这就更加说明了需要通过结构性改革和其他银行改革把它们解放出来。


The Erosion of Europe	被侵蚀的欧洲


BERLIN – Just weeks ago, the worst of the financial crisis in Europe seemed to be over.	柏林——就在几星期前，最严重的欧洲金融危机似乎已经过去。


Stability seemed to be returning.	金融秩序正在恢复之中。


But appearances proved to be deceptive.	但事实证明表象并不可靠。


A minor problem (at least in scale) like Cyprus, when combined with an almost unbelievable degree of incompetence among the “troika” (the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund), was enough to turn a molehill into a mountainous crisis.	像塞浦路斯那样一个次要问题（至少从规模上看的确如此），在“三驾马车”（欧盟委员会、欧洲央行和国际货币基金组织）令人近乎难以置信的无能衬托下，足以让原本无关紧要的琐事演变为一场巨大的危机。


While markets remained calm, the Cyprus crisis revealed the full extent of the political disaster that the eurozone crisis has wrought: the European Union is disintegrating at its core.	虽然市场依然平静，但塞浦路斯危机充分暴露了欧元区危机带来政治灾难的严重程度：欧盟正在从核心部分逐渐解体。


Europeans’ current crisis of confidence concerning Europe is far more dangerous than renewed market anxiety, because it cannot be overcome with another liquidity injection by the ECB.	欧洲人目前对欧洲的信心危机远比市场忧虑重燃更为危险，因为单靠欧洲央行注入流动性已经无法解决这一问题。


Europe’s old political order was based on competition, mistrust, power rivalries, and, ultimately, war among sovereign states.	欧洲原有政治秩序的基础是竞争、不信任、权力斗争和作为终极表现形式的主权国战争。


It collapsed on May 8, 1945, and was replaced by a system based on mutual trust, solidarity, the rule of law, and compromise.	旧的政治秩序在1945年5月8日一朝崩溃，代之以互信、团结、法治和妥协为主导的制度。


But, with the crisis eroding these foundations, trust is giving way to mistrust, solidarity is succumbing to ancient prejudices (and even new hatred between the poor south and the rich north), and compromise is being overwhelmed by diktat.	但由于金融危机的侵蚀，信任正逐渐让位于怀疑、团结正屈服于古老的偏见（甚至是贫困的南欧和富足的北欧间新的仇恨），妥协被苛刻的命令所取代。


And Germany is once again at the center of the process of disintegration.	德国再次被推到了欧洲解体进程的风口浪尖。


That is because Germany, by far the EU’s strongest economy, has enforced a strategy for overcoming the eurozone crisis that worked for Germany at the beginning of the millennium, but under completely different internal and external economic conditions.	究其原因是欧盟第一经济强国德国在截然相反的内外经济环境下，于新千年伊始执行了曾在其本国行之有效的战胜欧元区危机的策略。


For the distressed southern European states, the German-backed mixture of austerity and structural reforms is proving fatal, because the decisive third and fourth components – debt relief and growth – are missing.	事实证明因为缺少决定性的第三和第四因素（即债务减免和经济增长），深受德国支持的紧缩辅以结构改革的策略对身处困境的南欧国家构成了致命的打击。


It is only a matter of time before one of the large European crisis countries elects a political leadership that no longer accepts the austerity diktats.	陷入危机的某欧洲大国选出拒绝听命于紧缩的政治领袖仅仅是迟早的事。


Even now, come election time, national governments more or less openly promise to protect their citizens from Europe, because Germany has seen to it that austerity and structural reforms take pride of place in managing the crisis.	即使现在在大选期间，因为德国要求确保紧缩和结构改革在危机管理中占主要地位，各国政府都或多或少地公开承诺要保护本国民众免受欧洲威胁。


The argument that “tough love” was necessary in southern Europe, because nothing there would ever have changed otherwise, has been settled.	对待南欧地区“严是爱、宽是害”，否则那里永远无法进步的说法已经深入人心。


The love has been very tough indeed, generating rapid economic contraction, massive unemployment (upwards of 50% among young people), and continued fiscal deterioration, owing to rising debt-service costs.	这种爱的确非常严厉，不断攀升的借贷成本导致该地区经济快速收缩、大批民众失业（青年人的失业率高达50%以上）和财政状况持续恶化。


Indeed, all eurozone members are now experiencing weak economic growth, if not recession.	事实上，即使不是所有欧元区成员国集体陷入衰退，它们也都面临着经济增长疲软的难题而束手无策。


What does Germany want?	德国到底想要什么？


A German Europe would never work, and the country’s political class lacks both the courage and the determination to pursue a European Germany.	建设属于德国的欧洲永远不可能成功，而德国政界又不具备决心和勇气建设属于欧洲的德国。


So, does Germany want to hold together the monetary union and thus preserve the EU, or will it allow dithering and a lack of vision to hasten the erosion of Europe’s foundations?	既然如此，德国是想通过保全货币联盟来保全欧盟，还是会任由优柔寡断和鼠目寸光加速侵蚀欧洲的基础？


In this crisis, intention takes a back seat to action (or lack thereof).	在这场危机中，出发点与行动（或缺少行动）相比显得不那么重要。


The International Herald Tribunerecently quoted Winston Churchill: “It’s not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what’s required.”	《国际先驱论坛报》最近援引温斯顿·丘吉尔的观点：“单纯说竭尽全力还远远不够，有时我们必须达标。


That is precisely the order of the day in Europe and the eurozone.	”这恰恰合乎当今欧元区和欧洲的需求。


What needs to be done has long been clear.	需要采取哪些措施早就已经一清二楚。


The price of the monetary union’s survival, and thus that of the European project, is more community: a banking union, fiscal union, and political union.	货币��盟及欧洲事业存在的基础是以银行、财政及政治联盟为主的集体联盟。


Those who oppose this because they fear common accountability, transfers from rich to poor, and a loss of national sovereignty will have to accept Europe’s re-nationalization – and thus its exit from the world stage.	那些害怕共同责任、财富转移和丧失国家主权的人必须接受欧洲重新国有化，并就此从世界舞台上退出。


No alternative – and certainly not the statusquo – will work.	根本没有可能维持现状，也不存在其他选择。


It has become common knowledge in Europe that the ongoing crisis will either destroy the EU or bring about a political union, and that, without a solidarity-based solution to existing debt and a partial mutualization of new debt, the euro cannot be saved.	人们已经达成共识：当前危机将摧毁欧盟或创建政治联盟； 以团结为基础的债务退出及新债部分共有能救欧元于水火之中。


Such steps will make far-reaching transfers of sovereignty unavoidable.	上述措施将使影响深远的主权转让成为不可逆转的洪流。


Is Germany – or France – willing to do that?	德法两国是否愿意接受？


The real crisis of the EU and the monetary union is not financial but political – or, more precisely, it is a leadership crisis.	欧盟及货币联盟的真正危机与其说来自金融还不如说源于政治——或者更确切地讲本质是一场领导危机。


A lack of vision, courage, and strength of purpose is on display in all European capitals, but especially so in Berlin (and on the part of government and opposition alike).	以柏林（政府和反对党都包括在内）为首的欧洲各国首都都缺乏远见、勇气和坚强的意志。


Europe’s national politicians routinely criticize the EU for its lack of democratic legitimacy, yet they bear part of the responsibility for it.	欧洲国家政客往往指责欧盟不具备民主合法性，但部分责任恰恰要由他们自己来负。


Or have pro-Europeans become so faint-hearted and dejected that they prefer simply to hand over the reins to anti-European populists and nationalists?	抑或是欧盟支持者在这场危机后变得如此胆怯和沮丧，只想把决定权交回到反欧洲的民粹和民族主义者手中？


That would be a disaster, because the crisis now runs too deep to be resolved by technocratic means.	这将带来一场灾难，因为单凭技术官僚手段已经无法化解这场危机。


Germany is preparing for a national election in which – much like in last year’s French presidential election – the European crisis is to play no part, or at least only a minor one.	德国大选像去年举行的法国大选一样，不会讨论（或至少不会重点讨论）欧洲金融危机。


Both government and opposition believe that it would be better to tell the people the truth concerning the most vital question of the day only after the election (and in measured doses).	政府和反对派都认为大选后再（有节制地）将最重要问题的真相告知民众是更明智的选择。


Such an outcome would make a mockery of democracy.	这样的结果是对民主无情的嘲弄。


But things may turn out very differently if the dynamics of Europe’s crisis throw German politicians’ plans into disarray.	但如果德国政客的计划被欧洲危机打乱结果可能会截然不同。


An unpleasant surprise cannot be ruled out; at this point, it might be Europe’s greatest source of hope.	虽然无法排除出人意料的坏结果，但现在看来这可能是欧洲最大的希望。


The Europe of the Future	未来的欧洲


PARIS – Whenever people seek a justification for European integration, they are always tempted to look backwards.	发自巴黎——每当人们试图为欧洲一体化寻找依据的时候，他们总是喜欢从历史中寻找答案。


They stress that European integration banished the specter of war from the old continent.	他们强调一体化可以将战争的幽灵驱逐出这个古老的大洲。


And European integration has, indeed, delivered the longest period of peace and prosperity that Europe has known for many centuries.	而一体化事实上也给欧洲带来了数百年以来最持久的和平与繁荣。


But this perspective, while entirely correct, is also incomplete.	但这一观点虽然完全正确，却是不完整的。


There are as many reasons to strive towards “ever closer union” in Europe today as there were back in 1945, and they are entirely forward-looking.	相比于1945年，我们有更多的理由去为一个“更紧密的”欧洲而奋斗，而且这些理由都是向前看的。


Sixty-five years ago, the distribution of global GDP was such that Europe had only one role model for its single market: the United States.	65年前，全球GDP的分布状况使得欧洲只有一个实现单一市场的效仿对象：美国。


Today, however, Europe is faced with a new global economy, reconfigured by globalization and by the emerging economies of Asia and Latin America.	如今，欧洲正面对着一个全新的全球经济，一个被全球化和亚洲和拉美新兴国家所重新塑造的经济。


It is a world where economies of scale and networks of innovation matter more than ever.	那是一个经济规模和创新网络的作用比以往更为重大的世界。


By 2016 – that is, very soon – we can expect eurozone GDP in terms of purchasing power parity to be below that of China.	到2016年——也就是不久之后——我们预计以购买力平价计算的欧元区GDP将低于中国。


Together, the economies of China and India could be around twice the size of the eurozone economy.	中国和印度两国的经济规模将两倍于欧元区。


Over a longer time horizon, the entire GDP of the G-7 countries will be dwarfed by the major emerging economies’ rapid growth.	更长远地看，七大工业国集团（G7）的GDP总和将在主要新兴国家的飞速发展下相形见拙。


So Europe must cope with a new geopolitical landscape that is being profoundly reshaped by these emerging economies.	因此欧洲必须应对一个被这些新兴经济所深刻改变了的新地缘政治状况。


In this new global constellation, European integration – both economic and political – is central to achieving ongoing prosperity and influence.	在这个新的全球排位下，欧洲一体化——无论是经济还是政治方面——都是继续实现繁荣和影响力的核心要素。


Like individuals in a society, eurozone countries are both independent and interdependent.	而就像社会中的人一样，欧元区成员既各自独立也互相依存。


They can affect each other both positively and negatively.	他们也可以以正面或者负面的方式来影响他人。


Good governance requires that both individual member states and EU institutions fulfill their responsibilities.	而优秀的治理则需要各成员国和欧盟机构各自承担起自己的责任。


First and foremost, every eurozone country needs to keep its own house in order.	首先，每个欧元区成员国都要打理好自己的地盘。


This means responsible economic policies on the part of governments, as well as rigorous mutual surveillance of those policies – not just fiscal policies, but also measures affecting all aspects of the economy – by the Commission and member states.	这不但意味着各国政府必须制定负责任的经济政策，还需要欧洲委员会和其他成员国对这些政策——不仅是财政政策，还有对经济各方面造成影响的各项措施——实施严密的多方监察。


In a society, law-enforcement institutions can ultimately compel a citizen to abide by the rules.	在一个社会里，执法部门可以迫使一位公民服从法律。


In the eurozone, a framework based on surveillance and sanctions has, until the most recent decisions, depended on offending states’ willingness to comply.	在欧元区，一个基于监察和制裁的框架是否能执行（至少到最近的某些决策为止）却取决于那些违规国家的意愿。


But what can be done if a member state cannot deliver on its promises?	但如果一个成员国无法履行其承诺的话该怎么办？


For countries that lose market access, the approach of providing aid on the basis of strong conditionality is justified.	对于那些无法从市场融资的国家，在某些满足硬性条件下提供援助的做法是合理的。


Countries deserve an opportunity to correct the situation themselves and to restore stability.	这些国家应当得到一个自我修正和重新实现稳定的机会。


This approach nonetheless has clearly defined limits.	但这个方式也存在着显而易见的局限性。


So a second stage is now envisaged for countries that persistently fail to meet their policy targets.	因此针对那些一直未能达到其政策目标的国家将设计第二阶段计划。


During this second stage, eurozone authorities would play a much deeper and more authoritative role in the formulation of countries’ budgetary policies.	在这个阶段，欧元区当局将扮演一个更为深入也更为权威的角色去制定那些国家的预算政策。


This moves us away from the current framework, which leaves all decisions in the hands of the country concerned.	这将使我们脱离现在这个将所有决定权都放在目标国手中的框架。


Instead, it would be not only possible, but in some cases compulsory, for the European authorities to take direct decisions.	事实上，欧盟当局不仅有可能，甚至可以在某些情况下强制做出直接决策。


Implementing this idea also implies embracing a new concept of sovereignty, given the complex interdependence that exists between eurozone countries.	因为欧盟去国家之间复杂的互相依存关系，实施这一构想也意味着接受一个新的主权概念。


But it is ultimately in the interests of all eurozone citizens that these changes be made.	但这些改变最终也是为了全体欧元区公民的利益。


It is my firm conviction that the Europe of the future will embody a new type of institutional framework.	我坚信未来的欧洲将包括一个新型的体制框架。


What might it look like?	那么这个框架将会是什么样子？


Would it be too bold to envisage there being an EU finance ministry one day?	设想一个欧盟财政部的出现是否野心太大了？


Any future European finance ministry would oversee the surveillance of both fiscal policies and competitiveness policies, and, when necessary, impose the “second stage.”	未来的欧洲财政部将对各国的财政政策和竞争政策实施监督，而且在有必要的时候实施“第二阶段”。


Moreover, it would carry out the usual executive responsibilities regarding supervision and regulation of the EU financial sector.	此外，它还将承担与欧盟财政部门的监察与监管有关的日常行政责任。


Finally, the ministry would represent the eurozone in international financial institutions.	最后，财政部将在国际金融机构中代表整个欧元区。


Recent events have only strengthened the case for pursuing this approach.	最近发生的事件只是加强了对这一措施的追求。


Europe’s leaders are discussing a Treaty change to create stronger economic governance at the EU level, and eurozone citizens are themselves calling for better supervision of the financial sector.	欧洲领导人们正在讨论修改条约来创建欧盟层面上的更强势经济治理，而欧元区公民自己也在呼吁对金融部门实施更完善的监管。


And I know that our partners in the G-20 look to Europe as a whole, rather than to individual member states, for solutions.	我知道我们在G20集团中的伙伴将欧洲视为一个整体（而不是一个个成员国）来寻求解决方案。


So, increasingly, it seems that it would be too bold not to consider creating a European finance ministry at some point in the future.	日积月累之下，不去设想在未来某个时候创造一个欧盟财政部反而显得有点愚蠢了。


But an EU finance ministry would be only one component of Europe’s future institutional framework.	但一个欧盟财政部仅仅只是欧洲未来体制框架的一个部分。


One can imagine that, as various elements of sovereignty come to be shared, the European Council might evolve into the EU Senate, with the European Parliament becoming the lower house. Similarly, the European Commission could become the executive, while the European Court of Justice takes on the role of an EU judiciary.	可以想象，随着主权中的不同内容被拿来分享，欧盟理事会或许将进化成为欧盟参议院，而欧洲议会则变身成为欧盟众议院，与此同时欧���法院则承担欧盟司法机构的角色。


And, given European countries’ long and proud history, I have no doubt that “subsidiarity” will play a major role in the future Europe – significantly greater than in current models of federation.	此外考虑到欧盟各国的悠久历史，我毫不怀疑“次要规定”将在未来的欧洲承担一个重要角色——而且比当前的联邦模式更为重要。


Mine are the personal views of a European citizen.	这是我对欧洲公民的个人观点。


The future of Europe is in the hands of its democracies, in the hands of Europe’s people.	欧洲的未来取决于它的民主制度，取决于欧洲人民。


Our fellow citizens will decide the direction Europe is to take.	公民们将决定欧洲的走向。


They are the masters.	他们才是主人。


But, however Europe’s institutions take shape, a truly pan-European public debate is essential.	但必须展开一个真正的泛欧洲公共辩论来决定欧洲的体制将如何塑造。


As Europeans, we identify deeply with our nations, traditions, and histories.	作为欧洲人，我们对自身的定义深深根植于我们的国家，传统和历史。


These are Europe’s roots.	这些是欧洲的根。


But we also need to extend our branches more widely.	但我们也必须把自己的枝叶延伸得更宽更远。


So, today, we should not look back. We must look forward – to opportunities of collective betterment, and to every country’s potential to be stronger and more prosperous in a well-functioning union.	因此，今天的我们不应回溯历史，而必须放眼未来——放在那些可以实现集体改良的机会上，使每个国家都能把自身的潜力发挥出来，在一个良好运作的联盟之下变得更为强大和繁荣。


Photograph of Jean-Claude Trichet: (c) European Central Bank/Andreas Böttcher	让-克劳德·特里谢，曾任法国财政部长（1993-2003），欧洲中央银行行长（2003-2011），现任国际清算银行董事会董事。


The Euro’s Final Countdown?	欧元的最后倒数？


The introduction of the euro in 1999, it was claimed, would narrow the economic differences between the member countries of the monetary union.	据称， 1999 年引入的欧元能够缩小货币联盟成员国之间的经济差距。


Unemployment rates would converge, as would other important macroeconomic variables, such as unit labor costs, productivity, and fiscal deficits and government debt.	失业率以及其他重要的宏观经济变量，如单位劳动成本、生产率、财政赤字及政府债务等都将趋于同化。


Ultimately, the differences in wealth, measured in terms of income per capita, would diminish as well.	按人均收入计算的财富差距最终也将一并消失。


After the common currency’s first decade, however, increased divergence, rather than rapid convergence, has become the norm within the euro area, and tensions can be expected to increase further.	然而，在共同货币引入后第一个 10 年间，欧元区大行其道的不是迅速同化，而是不断异化。 欧元区各国关系将进一步紧张。


The differences between member states were already large a decade ago.	早在十年前，成员国之间就存在巨大差距。


The euro became the common currency of very wealthy countries, such as Germany and the Netherlands, and much poorer countries, such as Greece and Portugal.	欧元成为了德国、荷兰等富国和希腊、葡萄牙等穷国的共同货币。