The Economist visualiza escenarios para ruptura de la ZE

Genevieve Signoret & Patrick Signoret

The Economist imagina un memorándum para Angela Merkel que contempla escenarios en los cuales, para resolver la crisis, uno o más países son obligados a abandonar la zona del euro. Explica las motivaciones, ventajas y desventajas para cada escenario. (Otro artículo del Economist resume).

Del “memorándum”:

Greece is a disaster zone. Ireland and Portugal are making some progress (it was encouraging that Ireland was able to raise some money from the markets in July) but they still have a long way to go and could easily be knocked off course. Worse, Spain looks as if it may need a full bail-out rather than the partial one for its banks you had hoped would suffice. And Spanish sickness is infecting Italy, undermining all the good work that Mario Monti has been doing since the Italians saw sense and got rid of Silvio Berlusconi, as you had been urging behind the scenes. Meanwhile François Hollande isn’t doing enough to get France into shape and is playing the usual French game of calling for Germany to do more while resisting your attempts to centralise control at the European level. Mario Draghi, the ECB’s president, has calmed things down for the moment, but his plan could easily come unstuck.

III. The position is dangerously unstable. If capital flight from the peripheral economies gathers pace, it could trigger runs on entire banking systems. That would put the ECB—and thus, indirectly, the Bundesbank and Germany—on the hook for deposits worth trillions of euros. The domestic politics are already ugly in several countries, notably Greece. This is poisoning our position in southern Europe, where our help is increasingly seen as a new form of German tutelage. The situation is deteriorating in Germany, too, where your ability to act is being limited by a backlash against bail-outs and against the euro itself. If anything, the backlash in Finland and the Netherlands is even more vicious.

IV. Hence the need to consider an alternative strategy. The aim of this contingency plan is not the complete break-up of the 17-country euro area. That would be against the German national interest, destroying the hard-won respect we have achieved since the second world war by embracing European integration. And it would needlessly damage our economy by bringing back currency risk for trade with countries such as Austria and the Netherlands, which have adapted perfectly well to the euro. Plan B seeks to save the euro by surgery, excising states that cannot cope rather than clinging to the vain hope that they can regain their health within the euro zone.

V. We propose two options. First, the one that may be forced on you anyway: an exit by Greece arising from gross dereliction of its duties under the various bail-out agreements. We have taken as a given that MPs in the Bundestag will not sanction a single euro more in bail-out money to Athens. If that forces the Greeks out, so be it. Second, we also consider a wider exit of other countries that have failed the euro test. We think this should include all the states that have already been rescued, or are requesting bail-outs, because those countries share with Greece a fundamental loss of competitiveness and vulnerability to foreign capital flight. This means that they cannot be cured within a reasonable period of time while staying within the euro.

VI. In assessing the two options we have relied mainly on a cost-benefit analysis. That has been informed, where relevant, by historical precedents and the legal position (we are well aware of your concern that Germany must at all times be seen as law-abiding). We also look briefly at some of the practical issues involved in an exit. Naturally, we have taken into account the political constraints you face both at home and among your fellow European leaders. Caution is your watchword, so we’ve highlighted the risks of things going wrong if you adopt Plan B.

Lea el artículo completo. Incluye la siguiente tabla que resume costos (medibles) para la zona del euro y Alemania bajo dos escenarios: salida de Grecia y salida de “PICS” (Portugal, Irlanda, Chipre, España):

El memo argumenta que, aunque el costo de que los cinco se salgan de la zona del euro sería enorme en el corto plazo, puede ser la opción más razonable a largo plazo.

Of the two options, our judgment is that the larger break-up makes more overall economic sense than an exit of Greece alone. But we must emphasise that the economic and financial risks of it going wrong are much greater, and pushing it through would be an order of magnitude more difficult than co-ordinating an exit by Greece alone. Finally, a drawback associated with both options, even if they were to work, is that many of the benefits would lie in the future (by not having to make transfers to peripheral Europe) whereas the costs would be felt here and now—and blamed on you and your government.