Even if the best possible agreement is struck by the European Council meeting in Brussels December 7th-8th, the crisis will not suddenly be over. But this Commentary suggests a formula whereby it could at least be contained, thus giving countries such as Italy or Spain the time they need to show that they can get their deficits under control and turn their economies around.

Daniel Gros is Director of the Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels.

With European governments cutting back on spending, many are asking whether this could make matters worse. In the UK for instance, recent OECD estimates suggest that ‘austerity’ will lead to another recession, which in turn may lead to a higher debt-to-GDP ratio than before. As the debate heats up, this new commentary by CEPS Director Daniel Gros provides some cool economic logic.

In this analytical policy brief, CEPS Director Daniel Gros explores whether there is a fundamental difference between a formal sovereign default with a haircut and debt monetisation, which reduces the purchasing power for investors by the same amount. He argues that there is indeed a difference because a formal sovereign default invariably leads to a banking crisis.

This contribution by CEPS Director Daniel Gros lays the blame for Italy’s poor growth, which presently poses an existential threat to the entire eurozone, squarely on the country’s abysmal record on such governance factors as corruption and the rule of law. Reversing this political decline will take years of national commitment – of which he sees little sign.

Thirteen years after the Barcelona Process was launched, in 2008, Euro-Mediterranean relations were provided with a new framework for regional cooperation: the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM). Since then, the institution has attracted wide attention less because of its achievements than because of its stalemate. The much publicized cancellation of Heads of State Summits and Foreign Affairs Meetings, the delays in setting up the Secretariat and the empty chair policies pur- sued by its members were a blow to the institution’s credibility.

This paper examines two questions related to the sustainability of the major neoliberal, economic and social reforms in the new EU member states, namely the flat income tax and private pension pillars. First, we look at the relationship between the political consensus/controversy at the time major policy reforms were passed and the future sustainability of these reforms after a change of government.

The European Union should move quickly to enact an American-style ‘TARP’ in the eurozone to strengthen the financial sector and maintain lending, argues CEPS CEO Karel Lannoo.

In light of the continued difficulties experienced by the Greek government to implement the promises it gave to its creditors and convince its own population of the need for further rounds of tough reforms in combination with investors’ doubts that the country will ever be able to grow out of its public debt, this CEPS Commentary reiterates the authors’ earlier proposal to take advantage of the low prices of Greek debt to implement a market-based approach to debt reduction.
Daniel Gros is Director of CEPS. Thomas Mayer is Chief Economist of Deutsche Bank.

With the completion of the latest rescue package for Greece – which relieved the country of short-term liquidity problems and eased the borrowing terms, but which made only a small dent in the overall debt burden – this Commentary explores the question whether Greece can now ’grow solvent’? The prognosis is not encouraging: given the country’s unfavourable demographic prospects and the small size of its tradable sector, Greece will face a huge task in growing out of its debt burden.

‘Blue’ or Eurobonds guaranteed via joint and several liability by the eurozone member states have been proposed as an important tool to stabilise and structure the eurozone sovereign bond markets. But in this new Policy Brief, Hans-Joachim Dübel argues the case for a partial insurance of sovereign bonds by the European Stability Mechanism.
Hans-Joachim Dübel is an independent financial sector consultant based in Berlin and founder of Finpolconsult.
 

Investors are anticipating the unravelling of the 21 July 2011 ‘solution’. In this new CEPS Commentary, CEPS Director Daniel Gros and Chief Economist of Deutsche Bank, Thomas Mayer argue that the EFSF cannot work as intended but if it were registered as a bank the generalised breakdown of confidence could be stopped while leaving the management of public debt under the supervision of the finance ministers.

The first act of the eurozone debt drama was about whether any European Union member country could ever become insolvent. It ended when the highest EU authority, the European Council, officially recognised in late July that Greece does need a reduction in its debt obligations. But that acknowledgement of reality does not end the drama. The second act will be about restoring growth prospects for the EU periphery, which will pose an even more difficult challenge.

In the immediate aftermath of yesterday’s European Council’s decision to effectively transform the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) into a European Monetary Fund, this CEPS Commentary explores whether the EFSF has enough resources to become a credible deterrent against a recurrence of the recent turbulences in the euro area sovereign debt markets. The authors argue that an increase in lending capacity of the EFSF, which has been agreed politically but has not yet been fully ratified, is urgently needed.

In this Commentary, CEPS Director compares the developments in Greece today with those that took place in Argentina in the decade leading up to its messy default in 2001-02, following its decision a decade earlier to peg its currency to the dollar. He sadly concludes that the Greek experience – so far, at least – looks like a replay of the Argentine drama.