Leitura interessante, ainda que pessimista da crise cipriota. Ele tem toda razão em relação a dificuldade alemã em evitar o papel de vilão nas crises da zona do euro,apesar de , na maioria, das vezes adotar a posição com melhor fundamento econômico. ...
he Germans are as right on Cyprus as they were on the rest of the eurozone’s “peripheral countries”: no discipline, no help. Yet as so often before, they manage to land themselves in the wrong. The reason is not necessarily Teutonic clumsiness in the manner of Kaiser Wilhelm, who always pushed the wrong buttons in Europe from 1890 onward. The big and mighty always get into trouble, just by being what they are.
Nobody really knows who did what to whom over the weekend, when the Cyprus deal – which envisaged bank customers on the island parting with 6 to 10 per cent of their deposits – was cooked up.
Forget reports that it was the Cypriots themselves who said all depositors should take a hit. Never mind that Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, had originally swung the biggest hatchet, demanding to lop off 30, even 40 per cent in excess of €100,000. But they all agree that the Germans are to blame, fingering Wolfgang Schäuble, Berlin’s finance minister, as the villain of the piece.
“He put enormous pressure” on the Cyprus president, reported an anonymous participant; “it was really ugly”. What Mr Schäuble reaped was not pretty, either. First, the parliament rejected the deal without a single opposing vote. Then, a miraculous metamorphosis unfolded. Cyprus, that cesspool of profligacy and haven for tax-dodging Russian oligarchs, was recast overnight as the home of pitiable pensioners and savers. Third, the Russians waded in, with President Vladimir Putin castigating the levy as “unfair, unprofessional and dangerous”. Watch the Bosphorus for approaching Russian warships.
How will it all end? As Yogi Berra put it: “It’s déjà vu all over again.” The European game goes like this: Angela Merkel draws lines in the sand; then she vacates them, breaks a few treaties, and lets the European Central Bank take over, though Mario Draghi, its president, is demonstratively dragging his heels.
Germany is trapped. If it does not relent there is the risk that Nicosia declares a default, possibly bolting from the euro. That in itself may not count for much. Cyprus is a tiny sliver of the EU economy. But think of the ramifications. Millions of panicked savers start a run on their banks from Lisbon to Athens, bringing down an edifice that has been barely propped up by ECB and the various European bailout funds, unleashing a broad-scale attack by the markets. Auf Wiedersehen, euro.
If Berlin opens the sluice gates it rewards moral hazard – plenty of it in the case of Cyprus. The country’s banking sector is eight times the size of its gross domestic product. Having invested the bulk of their deposits in Greek bonds, the island’s banks took the biggest hit – as percentage of GDP – when Athens imposed a haircut on bondholders. The banks had to beg for government help.
Nor was the Greek gambit the only problem. As in Spain, cheap money had inflated a huge property bubble.
Governments in Spain, Portugal and Greece, but also in Italy and France, having seen that Cyprus has been saved will pause painful and unpopular budget-cutting and market reforms. They will calculate that if little Cyprus got away with it then so can they given their critical mass.
As a result, the worst angst of the Germans will come true: the enshrinement of a dysfunctional currency area that was folly to begin with. How could “Club Med” and “Club North” ever mesh – the former spendthrift and uncompetitive, the latter reformist and efficient. It hasn’t, the euro crisis shows.
In the run-up to currency union, the Germans thought they could coax Club Med into fiscal and microeconomic probity. Those hopes have been dashed. But Berlin – and its small band of followers from Vienna to Helsinki – must prevail, unless they resign themselves to bleeding for the greater good forever. Understandably, the Germans loathe being asked to choose between losing the euro or their hard-earned riches.
Hence a Merkel-Schäuble policy that wields the whip while handing out carrots. This year the old game comes with a new risk, called “general elections”. So don’t count on excessive generosity until the autumn, after the German election.
Among voters, fear is being compounded by anger. “Why should we lavish our money on the wayward if they vilify us as latter-day Nazis?” the vox populi growls, adding: “Hang tough, Frau Merkel.” Ever so attuned to the country’s mood, the chancellor will be a bit keener to go to the brink this year.
It is tough to be Germany – the country in the middle that has always been too strong for Europe, but too weak to dominate it. But the power rivalry within the continent, after 60 years of closer union, is insipidly peaceful.
So tabloid attacks on Berlin, evoking yesterday’s demons, are off the mark. For the biggest game has changed. There is a world of difference between the Europe of Kaiser Wilhelm and Frau Merkel, between Panzer armies and currency reserves. Compared to the last 500 years, this is sheer bliss – give or take a few haircuts.
Josef Joffe
Fonte: FT
The writer is editor of Die Zeit and a fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University
