„Italy’s broken banks show the dangers behind the euro“
Italien bleibt für mich der beste Kandidat für einen Euro-Austritt. Das Land ist in einer Depression gefangen, ohne Möglichkeit, sich daraus aus eigener Kraft zu befreien. Klares Krisensignal signalisieren die dortigen Banken. Nach Jahren des wirtschaftlichen Niedergangs sind die faulen Schulden massiv. Der Telegraph fasst das Grauen zusammen:
- „The Italian economy has done extremely badly under the euro, suffering second only to Greece. Italy has grown, on average, by just 0.2pc a year since the single currency was launched in 1999.“
- „Locked in a high-currency strait-jacket, it has lost 30pc in terms of unit labour cost competitiveness against Germany over that period, a loss that would previously have been significantly eased by gradual depreciation of the lira.“
- „The official Italian unemployment rate of 11.4pc, while high (it’s 5.1pc in the UK), is widely dismissed as an under-estimate. In Campania the level is 53pc. In Calabria it’s 65pc. Youth unemployment, having averaged 23pc during the first decade of the euro, is now a heartbreaking 37pc.“ – bto: Da wundert man sich doch nur, weshalb die Anti-Euro-Parteien noch nicht regieren.
- „That’s one reason why polls show almost 50pc of Italians want to leave the EU, with several mainstream parties openly discussing the prospect of quitting the euro. Italy’s ongoing lack of growth has badly aggravated its debt crisis, with government liabilities standing at €2,170bn, or 134pc of GDP.“
- „The only reason the country’s sovereign bonds aren’t trading at ruinous yields is that the European Central Bank is pumping out €80bn a month of printed money.“
- „The most immediate problem, though, one that poses a very real danger of systemic meltdown, is Italy’s banks. The €80bn pile of UniCredit’s non-performing loans that did for its CEO is just part of a far bigger €360bn national NPL mountain.“
- „Italy’s banks have bad debt on their balance sheets equivalent to around 18pc of all outstanding loans and rising – compared to 3pc and falling in Germany and 4pc in France. While banks’ shares have suffered across the EU this year, those in Italy are down over half as much again as the average.“ – bto: In Deutschland muss es auch fallen. Gute Konjunktur und vor allem tiefe Zinsen.
- „With the state close to insolvent, the banks are attempting a private-sector led scheme under which, rather than writing off loans and imposing losses on stock and bondholders, as should happen, weak big banks are propping up weak small banks.“
- „(…) when it comes to the single currency itself almost everyone now accepts what some of us have been saying for 25 years, namely, that it will only survive if there is a meaningful pooling of a large chunk of euro-wide government revenue and also a banking union. Neither will happen anytime soon.“ – bto: weshalb die Bombe des Euro weiter tickt.
- „(…) before these massive dilutions of national sovereignty happen – and I submit humbly that they never will – one or more countries will crash out of the euro, causing an almighty mess, the bill for which will be met by the big economies in the EU.“
- „The single currency is a powder-keg. It represents probably the largest systemic danger to global financial markets on earth. Yet, whatever the catalyst, be it an Italian banking collapse or ongoing turmoil in Greece, as an EU member the UK is on the hook should the euro implode. Consider that when assessing the merits of Remain.“ – bto: ein starkes Argument für einen Brexit.
Wer noch mehr zu Italien lesen möchte, hier ein paar Beiträge von bto:
→ „Lasst uns aus dem Euro austreten, bevor Italien es tut“
Und hier der Link zum Telegraph:
→ The Telegraph: „Italy’s broken banks show the dangers behind the euro“, 28. Mai 2016
