“Wiederaufbaufonds” – Name falsch, Nutzen gering, Euro weiter todkrank
Es herrscht breite Freude! Endlich – so hört man die Ökonomen von allen Seiten – wird der Euro eine echte Währungsunion, kommt es zu Transfers zwischen den Staaten und die EU macht auch noch Schulden. Corona mag tödlich sein, doch für den Euro ist es die Rettung.
Was für ein ausgemachter Blödsinn das ist, habe ich vielfach erklärt. Heute deshalb Ambroise Evans-Pritchard:
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- “The EU’s Recovery Fund has taken on a sacral character out of all proportion to its macroeconomic significance. The weekend gathering of EU elites at France’s Cercle des Economistes was one long celebration of this pandemic package.” – bto: Ich war da mal, es sind auch Deutsche dabei, abgesandt von der Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. Ich kann es mir richtig vorstellen. Wobei die Franzosen es als Eintritt in die Transferunion sehen. Zu Recht.
- “I did not hear a single participant seriously question whether this clutter of measures – ostensibly worth €750bn (with poetic licence), but stretched thinly until 2025 – will make any material difference given the scale of the Covid shock, or whether its structure will prevent the eurozone’s North-South gap widening fatally as an asymmetric recovery takes hold.” – bto: Man kann die Divergenz durch Transfers nicht stoppen, nur durch das Ruinieren der Transferleistenden.
- “The IMF has slashed its forecast for 2020 yet again to -12.2pc for France, and -12.5pc for Italy and Spain even assuming a benign scenario and no second wave, which is far from assured. They will claw back just half the lost ground in 2021. The political effects will hit with a delay as the job subsidies are wound down.” – bto: Das werden sie nicht. Wir bekommen Dauersubventionen der Staaten, also quasi den Sozialismus auf Erden.
- “The Recovery Fund is certainly an institutional coup for the European Commission. (…) suddenly be able to borrow large sums on the bond markets and will control the way the money is spent. But be careful: it is only a one-off scheme. It does not imply fiscal union or eurobonds, and is best understood as German manoeuvre to head off such a constitutional revolution.” – bto: Das halte ich für eine falsche Einschätzung. Es ist der Einstieg in die Transferunion und die deutsche Regierung will das auch.
- “Stripped of decoration, the pure fiscal component (grants) amounts to €100bn a year for the whole EU, or 0.6pc of GDP annually. (…) Poland, Hungary, and the East-bloc will be the biggest recipients per capita – to buy them off. (…). Italy will receive a modest net transfer for four years but it will be barely noticeable when set against the greater drama of its debt dynamics, a ratio rocketing past 160pc of GDP even if all goes well.” – bto: Klar ist, dass man auf diesem Weg die italienischen Probleme nicht lösen kann.
- “Hence the growing talk of a debt restructuring conference once the crisis is over – akin to the post-War London Accord of 1953 – in order to haircut Italian and Club Med debt. Caveat creditor.” – bto: Ich bleibe dabei, dass mein Schuldentilgungsfonds für alle hier überlegen ist. Ich denke nicht, dass wir eine solche Restrukturierung politisch durchgesetzt bekommen.
- “(…) Italy must cover a budget deficit heading for 14pc of GDP this year. The Italian Treasury must find an extra €120bn to €150bn to cover the shortfall up to December. Not even the European Central Bank can mop up this much debt so quickly without deviating promiscuously from its ‘capital key’, and provoking fresh complaints at the German Constitutional Court.” – bto: theoretisches Problem. Italien wird kein Problem haben, die Schulden zu finanzieren, und natürlich wird die EZB einspringen.
- “(…) Olivier Blanchard, former chief economist at the IMF and doyen of the global Keynesians (…) warns of a ‘truncated V’ in Europe that stalls after regaining two-thirds of lost output, followed by a treacherous hiatus of several months before a vaccine arrives.” – bto: das, was ich gespiegelte Wurzel nenne.
- “German industrial orders did not roar back as expected in May. They are still down 31pc from the pre-Covid peak, and down 52pc for car manufacturing. (…) Weak industrial orders matter more than surging retail sales as an indicator at this juncture.” – bto: was zur Frage führt, ob es realistisch ist, davon auszugehen, dass Deutschland so viel besser durch die Krise kommt.
- “As for Holland’s Mr Rutte, (…) There should be no fiscal transfers, just loans, and these must be rigorously controlled. Any aid to Italy and Spain – or the East Europeans – must be conditional on ‘deep reforms to pensions, labour markets, judicial systems, and taxation’.” – bto: So ist es bei solchen Rettungsaktionen eigentlich üblich. Aber das ist nicht gewollt.
- “His tone has caused predictable fury in Rome. (…) If the EU is not careful, its pandemic plan will end up causing an Italian political crisis and therefore a debt solvency crisis, setting in motion the very events it most fears.” – bto: Ich kann mir nicht vorstellen, dass wir das europäische Projekt erkaufen können. Der Euro ist ein Spaltpilz.
- “By all means buy risk assets as a bet on global monetary reflation (though personally I am waiting) but don’t be beguiled by the transforming magic of the EU Recovery Fund.
