Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: E.U. Summit: Up All Night, But Consensus Finally Reached

E.U. Summit: Up All Night, But Consensus Finally Reached
Billed as the "last chance" summit to contain the escalating euro 
crisis, the meeting of EU leaders produces measures to relieve 
short-term financial pressures on vulnerable members, and lay the 
framework for significant budgetary and banking integration.
By Bruce Crumley | June 29, 2012
 
When it comes to confronting the crisis threatening the euro’s very 
existence, nothing ever seems to come easy for European Union 
leaders—even a mutually sought agreement. That was demonstrated Friday 
at the E.U. summit in Brussels, where it took all-night haggling to 
approve growth stimulus measures that Italy and Spain had blocked until 
they obtained a softening of rules on bailouts that they’re likely to 
eventually seek. Only in the madness of the euro crisis can taking 
yourself hostage become an effective bargaining tool.
 
Yet, despite what were described as tense and grinding negotiations, 
decisions announced early Friday morning appear to represent important 
steps towards the survival of the embattled euro zone—and in both the 
short- and long-term context of the crisis. “(We took) a very ambitious 
decision that shows once again the commitment of the member states,” 
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told reporters. “The 
irreversibility of the euro… will be recognized by all.”
 
At least once they wake up in the afternoon. Before the sleep-deprived 
leaders of the 17-member euro group broke their huddle at around 5 a.m. 
Friday, they adopted three significant concrete measures to confront the 
major factors in the crisis. The first involves allowing E.U. bailout 
funds to be paid directly to swamped euro-zone banks, rather than 
funneled through national governments. The old structure—designed to 
hold governments accountable for E.U. taxpayer rescue money—had the 
consequence of increasing the already crushing debt loads recipients 
were struggling to simultaneously finance and reduce. The change had 
been a demand Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy called vital in light 
of Spain’s pending $125 billion bank bailout request.
 
“It’s vital we break the vicious circle in which financially troubled 
banks get E.U. rescue aid from national governments whose debt level 
increases in the process,” said an advisor to French President François 
Hollande before the summit, explaining the logic behind the switch to 
direct aid. “Swamped banks hold enormous stores of their government’s 
debt. Those bonds start looking like even riskier investments to markets 
when the government has to take on additional debt to hand banks E.U. 
funding. The negative impact on increased sovereign debt undermines the 
intended benefit to banks, so everyone loses.”
 
The second summit agreement was to deploy $149 billion in existing 
emergency reserves as economic growth stimulus. That will soon start 
funding infrastructure projects, business development in strategic areas 
such as sustainable energy and youth employment programs.
 
The third decision—taken at the insistence of Italian premier Mario 
Monti—will create more flexible conditions under which struggling 
euro-zone members can appeal for funding to counter the market forces 
driving up their borrowing costs. That means countries like Italy and 
Spain—which have recently seen interest rates on new bond issues rise to 
untenably high levels despite having undertaken considerable austerity 
measures and reforms—can turn to E.U. institutions for aid without 
fearing the same harsh cost-cutting requirements imposed earlier in the 
crisis.
 
“We are opening the possibilities for countries that are well-behaving 
to make use of financial stability instruments… in order to reassure 
markets and get again some stability around some of the sovereign bonds 
of our member states,” E.U. President Herman Van Rompuy declared.
 
Viewed collectively, these moves appear to signal progress by E.U. 
leaders who had begun challenging the strict fiscal discipline 
championed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Hollande initiated the 
anti-austerity drive during his campaign for the French presidency 
earlier this year, with arguments that excessive spending cuts by 
national governments to lower debt levels had strangled already 
shrinking growth across Europe. While acknowledging that deficit and 
debt problems must be remedied, the Socialist Hollande—who since his 
election in May has formed a de facto alliance with like-minded Monti 
and Rajoy—argues the short-term focus must be on restoring economic 
growth, reducing unemployment and nurturing revenue-generating 
activities that will allow states to finance and reduce their debt 
loads. The $149 billion euro-zone stimulus funds he pushed for reflected 
that belief.
 
“François Hollande was described as totally isolated when he defended 
these pragmatic and effective positions on stimulus and flexibility to 
overcome short-term threats and open the road to long-term solutions,” 
said the Elysée official. “A majority of euro-zone leaders—including 
some at first hostile to his view—are now calling for the same policies.”
 
Yet, despite these moves, it would be unwise to view the summit as the 
worm turning against the long-defiant Merkel. The measures agreed to in 
Brussels suggest that Merkel may be advancing her long-term objectives 
by bending a bit on details that won’t cost her much now that most of 
her austerity prescriptions are in place.
 
For example, all the funds involved in the new plans had already been 
established under previous E.U. responses to the crisis, and are now 
largely being activated or re-directed. Similarly, the concession that 
Monti and Rajoy won on nominally lenient aid conditions will require 
proof that applicants are already playing by the existing 
crisis-resolution rules Merkel had orchestrated. That means any signs of 
slippage will result in loan rejection or additional tightening of the 
screws.
 
But perhaps most importantly, the funding changes under the summit 
agreement won’t kick in until centralized European overview structures 
are in place later this year. That monitoring capacity is part of what 
now appears to be irreversible movement towards budgetary and fiscal 
integration, and a banking union across the euro zone. Indeed, the 
currency crisis has become so acute that most members now seem resigned 
to shifting a significant degree of regulation and decision-making power 
from national capitals to Brussels. E.U. officials will now prepare what 
they laid out earlier in the week as a virtual integration “road map” 
for the next summit in October.
 
“Will the French parliament’s final authority and control over budgets 
be sacrificed? No, because that’s parliament’s legal responsibility 
under the constitution,” says the Hollande adviser, who acknowledges the 
historical reluctance of otherwise pro-European France to surrender any 
authority to Brussels. “But the common organization and structure 
attentive to both short- and long-term objectives, and which balances 
social and human concerns with fiscal restraints now being proposed goes 
in the same general direction as French philosophy.”
 
That’s a major change that no declaration or document coming out of 
Brussels on Friday will stipulate—and it may not be enough to save 
members like Greece from dropping out of the group. But it does suggest 
that progress and convergence is possible among euro members—even if it 
never comes easily.
 
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a dir la verità ciò che è accaduto in questi due giorni ha più un 
significato poltico che economico. La Merkel e la Germania sono stati messi 
in un angolo e hanno dovuto accettare l'intervento diretto del fondo salva 
stati senza ulteriori ingerenze esterne di fatto riportando la Germania ad 
una posizione minore rispetto alla "bolla politica" che aveva colpito la 
leadership tedesca negli ultimi due anni. Su questo punto Monti, 
spalleggiato da Spagna, Francia, Regno Unito ed Usa e da un consenso più 
generale, ha saputo far valere una certa forza contrattuale portandosi 
appresso il premier spagnolo Rajoy. Tuttavia c'è altro da dire. Le decisioni 
finora intraprese dovranno trovare applicazione e per questo occorrerà del 
tempo. In secondo luogo il fondo salva stati dovrà finanziarsi sui mercati 
per poi erogare gli auti necessari. La domanda è: fino a che punto sarà in 
grado di farlo? Mi spiego meglio. Il fono salva stati è garantito in ultima 
istanza dagli stati che lo compongono e in percentuali determinate dal peso 
che gli stessi hanno nella BCE. Se sono gli stessi stati che devono 
garantire il fondo salva stati ad andare in crisi come si potrà creare 
fiducia sul debito emesso dal fondo stesso nella malaugurata ipotesi che 
siano gli stessi stati a dover ricapitalizzare il fondo? Il realtà rimane il 
problema di fondo che aveva mosso le prime critiche alla proposta di Monti 
ovvero che rimane il rischio che siano gli stati a doversi indebitare per 
pagare gli aiuti altrui anche se con il fondo salva stati si pone una sorta 
di intermediario che dovrebbe ingenerare maggior fiducia. Ovviamente il 
maggior contributore del fondo è la Germania e questo rende bene il perché 
di tanta ostilità. Inoltre: se il fondo salva stati deve comprare i titoli 
pubblici degli stati sotto attacco speculativo per quanto tempo il fondo 
salva stati sarà in grado di reggere dovendo anch'esso finanziarsi sul 
mercato portando come garanzia la solvibilità degli stessi stati che devono 
essere salvati? Posso capire che il fondo salva stati possa essere un primo 
passo per giungere all'emissione illimitata della BCE, tuttavia ancora la 
zona euro non è al sicuro perché la speculazione può trovare il modo per 
mettere in crisi il sistema. Allo stesso modo è facilmente comprensibile 
come non siano state trovate soluzioni per eliminare o calmierare le 
disparità commerciali e finanziarie create con l'introduzione della moneta 
unica facendo sostanzialmente rimanere nei propri guai chi già ci si 
trovava. In definitiva se da un lato i mercati oggi hanno raggiunto vette 
euforiche (che tuttavia non sono indice di solidità ma di estrema volatilità 
derivata dalle macerie, soprattutto finanziarie, prodotte dalla crisi che 
non promettono nulla di buono ma che segnalano una decadimento progressivo 
di un buon numero di piazze finanziarie), dall'altro tuttavia si è solo 
messa una pezza su una diga che ancora rischia di tracimare. Vedremo 
pertanto quali saranno le prossime mosse e per quanto tempo si sarà in grado 
di garantire la fiducia degli investitori.