Alla valutaunioner i historien har antingen
lett till en stat eller spruckit.
Varför skulle EMU vara så
annorlunda?
Anders Lindberg, Hässelby, SvD Synpunkt
14/8 2003
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Euron spricker när dollarn faller
Rolf Englund Nya Wermlands-Tidningen 2001-01-08 To those loudly insisting all this week that Britain should have joined the euro ten years ago, Celebrating 10 years of the euro? About 16 million jobs have been created in the eurozone since the birth of the euro, and unemployment has fallen, from 9% in 1999 to 7% in 2007. Of course, neither of these achievements is necessarily due to the euro, any more than the fall in average inflation and long-term interest rates can be directly attributed to the European Central Bank. Nearly all of the world's advanced economies have seen a steady decline in inflation since the late 1980s (at least until recently), a development that has pushed down interest rates as well.  EMU@10 is a very substantial document about the future of the euro area – by far the most comprehensive and thoughtful report we have yet seen. It has three parts. We will ignore the first, which looks back at the first ten years, as well as the second on future challenges, There are three schools of thought about euro area policy co-ordination. What is remarkable is that the European Commission is departing from the previous line that economic reforms should be dealt with purely under the framework of the Lisbon Agenda. *
I am very pleased to welcome you to this website dedicated to the euro and The unemployment rate in Spain jumped the most in 15 years to a three-year high The pain in Spain Europe's monetary union, which launched the euro almost a decade ago, Jean-Claude Juncker, the EU's 'Mr Euro', The euro hit a record high against the dollar after data In truth, as the euro approaches its tenth birthday celebrations, it is facing the biggest test of its short life ECB has been reluctant to cut rates is not because growth is so robust but because inflation has picked up to 3.5%—the highest in the euro's nine-year existence. And two bigger worries have emerged. The first is the strength of the euro. Mr Almunia, economics commissioner, says the euro is “overvalued” and adds that, although the impact has been moderate so far, “we are at the limits, if not beyond them.” The second worry is the housing market. Europe may have avoided the American subprime mess, but in several countries house prices have been even bubblier than in America. They are already falling in Spain and Ireland, and, beyond the euro zone, are starting to do so in Britain. A property bust may not produce an American-style mortgage meltdown, but it will surely topple economies heavily dependent on construction Even critics of the euro would concede that it has had considerable success, establishing itself in less than a decade as a genuine rival to the dollar as a world currency. But... But some countries have adapted a lot better to the discipline of the euro than others. Germany and the Netherlands have cut labour costs and introduced enough reforms to make their economies more competitive. France, Spain and especially Italy have done less—and are suffering more, from both the euro's rise and the global slowdown. Though many observers are rightly concerned about Spain, it may be Ireland that becomes the next serious test of EMU’s one-size-fits-all monetary policy. The European Commission Predicts Weaker Growth, Higher Inflation in 2008 Yet if the storm is peaking in the US, it has hardly begun in Europe. Byggkrasch nära i Spanien Companies in Britain and Europe have failed to place a single high-yield bond http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/business/ambrosevanspritchard/nov07/euro.htm As the euro brushes $1.50 against the dollar, As Airbus chief Thomas Enders warned in a speech to the Hamburg workers last night, Europe's champion plane-maker - the symbol of European unification, in the words or ex-French president Jacques Chirac -- is now facing a "life-threatening" crisis. The sudden rocketing in sovereign bond spreads this week between core German Bunds and Club Med debt - Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, as well as Irish, Belgian and Slovenian - is a clear sign that markets are starting to price in a break-up risk for the single currency, however remote. The euro soared to another record high against the sagging dollar, "Some thougths about the future of the euro" The wolf packs are circling. Hedge funds target currency pegs The global M3 money supply is growing at 10.6pc as stimulus from America, Europe – and Japan, through the carry trade – leaks out to the vibrant parts of the world economy... With the usual lag, inflation has at last hit. The easiest prey are in the Baltics and Balkans, where EU newcomers have let rip by importing an ECB monetary policy designed for the slow barges on the Rhine. All are overheating.
The dominoes are toppling. The dollar broke above $1.40 per euro for the first time Varför betalade ECB 1.800 miljarder kronor för att rädda euron? The euro slipped to a six-week low against the U.S. dollar on Wednesday and The ECB made a total of four cash interventions since last Thursday The ECB "will continue to monitor the situation while euro-area financial markets in general are going back to normal functioning,'' The European Central Bank on Monday injected another 47.67 billion euros ($65 billion) into the banking system Speculation is mounting that the European Central Bank will seek to arrange a currency swap The European Central Bank made a second move to boost liquidity in the financial market Friday, *
Med nödkrediter på nästan 900 miljarder kronor, Paniken borde egentligen vara obefogad Kommentar av Rolf Englund: *
The European Central Bank scrambled to head off a potential financial crisis on Thursday by pumping an emergency €94.8bn ($131bn) into the region’s banking system The cash injection was the biggest in the ECB’s history, exceeding the €69bn provided the day after the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001. The ECB also made an unprecedented one-day pledge to meet 100 per cent of all funding requests from financial institutions. In “The Coming Collapse of the Dollar,” James Turk and I said this about the effect of a falling dollar on other countries: Professor Paul de Grauwe So what if the euro rises above $1.40? The long-run performance and success of the EMU depends on whether economic convergence or divergence is occurring. Germany needs to formulate a response to Sarkozy or the only proposal on the table will be Sarkozy’s anti-stability, anti-competition, pro-currency-intervention proposals. The euro has continued its dramatic surge to record highs against the dollar, causing serious strains in southern Europe and renewing concerns about the long-term viability of monetary union. The country that most troubles outsiders is Latvia. French and Italian industrial production both unexpectedly fell in April Finns euron kvar om 15 år? I en viktig fråga är EMU-projektets varmaste anhängare och argaste kritiker helt överens: For the first time, respectable voices - i.e., those deemed respectable by the European elite - "tensions" from "persistent divergences in growth and inflation" among its members, the European Commission warned Italy is often mentioned as the country most likely to leave the euro. I disagree. The real reforms needed to secure the euro’s future Joaquín Almunia, EU monetary affairs commissioner 280-page report on the low pace at which countries have adapted to the euro since its launch in 1999. Now, some experts are becoming concerned that Could the eurozone disintegrate? - The answer is yes. John Rubino 7/20/2007: Correctly interpreting this change in buying patterns as a threat to their vital export sectors, European and Japanese leaders will respond with the only weapon they have left: monetary inflation. They’ll cut interest rates and buy dollars with their currencies, flooding the world with euros and yen the way the U.S. now floods the world with dollars. So what if the euro rises above $1.40? My prediction is that they will first have a fight about who is in charge. If the euro continues to appreciate, Germany in particular will suffer from a sustained exchange-rate overshoot, as its economy remains as dependent as ever on a successful export sector. There are non-trivial structural risks that the euro may appreciate further in the short-to-medium term.If it does, Mr Steinbrück (“I’m not worried about a strong euro. I love a strong euro”) will not only have to eat his words. More worryingly, he and his European colleagues will have no idea what to do under these circumstances. Germany’s ability to improve its competitive position through a devaluation of the real exchange rate has run its course. My hunch is that the German government will find it difficult to stick to its current position and that Mr Sarkozy will win this argument. It would be much better if the eurozone adopted a more structured process to deal with exchange rate overshoots. Germany needs to formulate a response to Sarkozy or the only proposal on the table will be Sarkozy’s anti-stability, anti-competition, pro-currency-intervention proposals. The long-run performance and success of the EMU depends on whether economic convergence or divergence is occurring. Now several years after the formation of the monetary union (formally started in 2002 but already effectively in place since 1999) there is enough economic data to make a preliminary assessment of the success of the monetary union. Here is a concise overview of the economic criteria that make a currency or monetary union desirable.... In the RGE paper (co-authored by Christian Menegatti, Elisa Parisi-Capone and myself) that we presented at the EMU conference we conducted a systematic overview of the evidence on economic convergence or divergence within the EMU. The only country where the external adjustment has taken place has been Germany: but even in this case the adjustment was very slow and took more than a decade: the shock of German unification and the ensuing loss of competitiveness of Germany took more of a decade to be unraveled via a painful process of corporate restructuring and significant wage moderation. Iin the process leading to EMU real interest rates sharply fell in countries such as Spain, Portugal, Ireland and the Netherlands. This reduction in real interest rates led to an economic boom and overheating that – in the countries above – took also the form of a housing boom with excessive investment in real estate and sharply rising home prices. The ensuing economic bust in the Netherlands and Portugal was particularly painful. The housing bust that is likely to now occur in Spain - and possibly even Ireland – will be similarly painful. One serious open question if whether the countries – Italy, Portugal, Spain, Greece - that have experienced a significant loss of competitiveness and real exchange rate misalignment will be able implement reforms that will increase productivity growth, reduce relative unit labor costs and allow them to regain their lost competitiveness. There are some reasons to be cautiously pessimistic. Even ECB executive board member Lorenzo Bini-Smaghi - who strongly argued that EMU has been a success – admitted that these countries may have to go through a long and painful adjustment period to regain the lost competitiveness. This article appeared orginally in Nouriel Roubini's Blog at RGE Monitor. The euro has continued its dramatic surge to record highs against the dollar, causing serious strains in southern Europe and renewing concerns about the long-term viability of monetary union. French president Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday instructed his staff to draw up plans on "the means for implementing an exchange rate policy" in co-operation with the 13 finance ministers of the eurozone, showing that he intended to press ahead with his campaign to clip the wings of the European Central Bank. The aim is to twist the arm of the ECB, until it agrees to slow the pace of rate rises. "When the dollar loses 33pc of its value against the euro, how can our industries regain the competitiveness lost unfairly due to political manipulation by the rest of the world?" he told Euro MPs last week. The current account deficits of Spain, Greece, and Portugal have all reached 10pc of GDP. While the slippage in France is less dramatic, it has been enough to cause deep soul-searching in Paris about the value of euro membership on current terms. Bernard Connolly, global strategist for Banque AIG, said investors switching from dollars to euros were mistakenly treating Germany as if it were a "proxy" for all Europe. "What they fail to recognise is that Spain, Italy, and France are in a worse state than the US, and are even more dependent on a global credit bubble to support demand," he said. French and Italian industrial production both unexpectedly fell in April The euro advanced to a record against the dollar in April, making European goods less competitive at a time when the economy of the U.S., the region's biggest export market, has slowed. The European Commission predicts euro-region growth will cool to 2.6 percent this year, from 2.7 percent, still robust enough for the European Central Bank to push interest rates higher. The declines in French and Italian output come after a report showing German industrial production fell in April for the first time in six months. Manufacturing in the euro region expanded at the slowest pace in more than a year in May. The unemployment rate in Spain jumped the most in 15 years to a three-year high The pain in Spain The Spanish economy has been a driving force for economic activity in the euro area for more than a decade, with year-on-year GDP growth exceeding the average rate of expansion in the euro area in every quarter since 1995. The weakness began last year in the housing market — the major driver of the Spanish economy over the last ten years. The danger signs are now spreading to other sectors of the economy. The Economist Intelligence Unit has cut its forecast for Spanish GDP growth to just 1% in both 2008 and in 2009, compared with an annual average rate of expansion of 3.8% in 1998-2007. Rising employment in the construction sector has accounted for a substantial share of overall employment growth in recent years, while house prices are estimated to have increased by 190% between 1997 and 2007—only Ireland and the UK have experienced a similar hike in prices among major industrialised countries. A return to a more normal level of housing investment would take off some 3 percentage points of GDP, and in order to absorb earlier excess construction, a temporary fall to below the normal level would probably be necessary. The experience of Sweden, where housing investment declined by 71% between the peak in 1990 and the first (not final) trough in 1995, suggests that such adjustments can be dramatic. With Spain being a member of the euro area (and a departure from the club out of the question), a devaluation of the currency to improve competitiveness and boost export demand is also not an option (although the high, and rising, current-account deficit would suggest a serious overvaluation). President Nicolas Sarkozy The ECB has doubled rates since December 2005, a key factor driving the euro to record highs. While a resurgent Germany can take the strain, most of the "Club Med" bloc is losing export share - including France. "How can you continue to export if the euro is the only currency in the world that is overvalued compared to the dollar, the yen and the yuan? Sarkozy Sarkozy is no fool. He is a former finance minister, who knows exactly what he is talking about. He has formed a firm view of economic governance both in France and in the euro area. And he has come to a different conclusion that most of us have. From the vantage point of a populist politician who is keen to break with the past, Sarkozy is in fact totally consistent. Treat the ECB, the Commission, and the Germans as your enemy, and play the role of Robin Hood, who takes the money from the evil ECB and hands it to the poor. This, far more than Italy's economic weakness, or a Spanish housing market meltdown, is the stuff which could endanger the long-run viability of the euro. Axel Weber, the hawkish head of the Bundesbank, is alarmed by a 10.9pc surge in the M3 money supply France and Germany have begun to clash openly over control of monetary policy in the eurozone, taking starkly different views about the rising threat of inflation. In an unprecedented rift, the heads of the Bundesbank and the Banque of France have contradicted each other in public, exposing an emerging rift between Europe's north and south. Axel Weber, the hawkish head of the Bundesbank, is alarmed by a 10.9pc surge in the M3 money supply in March, the highest growth rate for the region in almost a quarter of a century. The less-watched M2-M3 gauge rose 19.8pc - anathema to monetary hawks in Frankfurt. The comments were flatly contradicted hours later by Christian Noyer, France's bank chief. "There is no concern that inflation will get out of hand. The risk has not increased," he said, showing his irritation. The north-south clash reflects the yawning gap between a resurgent "Teutonic Tiger" conquering markets in Asia and Eastern Europe, and a sickly France being left behind. The strong euro is slowly asphyxiating French exporters. The rest of the Club Med bloc is lining up behind Paris. Romano Prodi, Italy's premier, said: "I am worried about the relentless rise of the euro. We have reached a point where it has become truly a burden." European finance ministers The eurozone has now split into two incompatible camps. Madness was at full throttle last week as the stateless currency of the world's least dynamic bloc surged to an all-time high near $1.37 against the dollar. It brushed yen163 against the yen, a rise of 80pc since 2001. The euro is even lording it over the Swiss franc. This rise has occurred at a time when a) the EU's "Lisbon" drive to unshackle the economy and close the technology gap with America has flopped, b) France, Italy, Spain, and Poland are openly defying the EU's single market rules, c) the grand plan to create an EU superstate has collapsed, leaving the euro an orphan currency, with no sovereign entity behind it, and no hope of an EU Treasury or debt union to see it through a crisis. The world plainly wants euros. Investors are willing to believe for now that the currency is a sort of big D-Mark reflecting the wonders of the German export machine - forgetting about 180m Latins on the other side of the eurozone's cultural fault line. They'll learn. Sated with dollars, China, Russia, and the petro-powers are shunting their massive reserves into Bunds and Spanish treasuries, pushing the euro ever higher. Since most of Asia hold down their currencies by mercantilist intervention, Europe is taking the brunt of the dollar slide. Deutschland AG has just enforced the harshest wage compression of modern times. Unit labour costs in manufacturing fell 4.4pc in 2005 alone as Volkswagen and Siemens extracted longer hours without extra pay under threat of moving jobs East. Stealthily, Germany has gained 40pc in competitiveness against Italy since the D-mark and lira were fixed in 1995, 30pc against Spain, and about 20pc against France. Berlin gave up the D-Mark under an implicit contract that the euro would never fuel German inflation. This contract will be enforced. If not, German citizens will pull the plug on EMU. The only question is who will file for divorce first: the Latins or Teutonia. They cannot both share the currency. Euro is 'doomed to failure' The French created the European Union, so it would be appropriate if they destroyed it. Do current account deficits matter inside a monetary union? Is Latvia about to devalue? The currency’s peg to the euro has provided the country with much-needed stability – after Russia’s 1998 default, most crucially – but has restricted the central bank’s ability to use monetary policy to reduce demand and inflation. It has also encouraged the credit boom by reducing borrowers’ exposure to foreign exchange risk. Moody’s says Latvia’s $20bn external debt equates to over 100 per cent of GDP, 43 per cent of it short-term and owed by the private sector. After Thailand’s currency peg broke in 1997, its currency lost more than half its value in the following six months. Bör Carl Bildt dömas till böter? Germany’s export strength also makes it export-dependent and vulnerable to a downturn in global demand. The real reforms needed to secure the euro’s future Ségolène Royal, socialist candidate for the presidential elections: The Eurozone economy is strong enough to withstand weaker US growth, higher German taxes and a dip in exports next year, Growth will slow in 2007, though the Commission said it would remain robust as negative effects would be limited. Countering the global problems would be strong domestic consumer demand and improved corporate spending, it added. ``While slower growth in the U.S. will undoubtedly have an impact on the rest of the world, our analysis suggests that its effect on activity in the euro area should be limited,'' Klaus Regling, head of the commission's economics department, said in the report. The recent flurry in foreign exchange markets probably signals the start of a process of unwinding global imbalances. Suppose the market brings about the requisite dollar depreciation. The author is a fellow of Merton College, Oxford Suppose the market brings about the requisite dollar depreciation. Then, if China and Japan were to maintain their dollar exchange rates, as they are currently entitled to, other countries, especially in Asia, would have an incentive to do the same. There would then be a large effective appreciation of the euro with potentially devastating effects on Europe. An exchange rate war could follow, as well as a return to protectionism. French premier Villepin attacks ECB amid call for return to franc Speaking on French radio as the euro surged to fresh records against Asian currencies, he said it was time to "lay everything on the table" and set the proper limits of ECB power. "We must clarify matters in exchange rate policy, which means taking back our sovereignty and our margin for action so the states can play their part," he said. The comments came as Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, a presidential candidate, became the first major Gaulliste to call for a return to the franc, underlining the collapsing popular support for monetary union in parts of French society. Mr Dupont-Aignan said the EMU had become unreformable, leading to a monetary squeeze that was driving the French economy into slump. Mr de Villepin said the eurozone was split into two clearly opposed camps. "There are some states that are happy with the current situation, but for France it is not acceptable. This is a tough fight that we are going to have to carry out at a political level," he said. Mr de Villepin's comments on exchange policy was a clear reference to Article 111-2 of the Maastricht Treaty giving EU finance ministers the power to shape the exchange rate. Known as the "nuclear option", it gives politicians the means to dictate policy to the ECB - since the exchange rate is an indirect lever over interest rates. It would in effect strip the bank of its cherished independence. No EU national leader has ever before threatened openly to invoke the clause. Michael Dicks, chief eurozone economist for Lehman Brothers, said a further rise in the euro above $1.35 would could cause severe strains. The Iraq invasion, disastrous though it has been, may not go down in history as the greatest political blunder of the past decade. What we see today, not only in Italy and Hungary, but also in the other relatively weak economies on the southern and eastern fringes of the EU, is the beginning of the end of the European project. What we see in Eastern and Southern Europe today are the consequences of the EU’s transformation from a union of democratic countries into a sort of supra-national financial empire in which the most important decisions affecting EU citizens are no longer subject to democratic control. There is now almost no chance of Hungary, or any other new European country, being admitted to the euro-zone in the foreseeable future. This was demonstrated over the summer when Lithuania and Estonia was refused permission to join the euro on the flimsiest of grounds. Italy will be tightening its budget at the same time as Germany implements the biggest tax increases in its modern history At some point the people of Europe will realise that there is something rotten in a political system that leaves them forever in the world economy’s slow lane — and which cannot be changed by any democratic process, regardless of how people vote. Eurozone unemployment falls to record low Why break-up of faltering euro could be the way ahead The disintegration of the euro may be drawing closer. Warnings of an EMU bust-up were once confined to a handful of eurosceptic journals: they have since spread to City banks such as Morgan Stanley and HSBC, and are now moving perilously close to the EU core itself. "Will the Eurozone Crack?" is the latest missive from the Centre for European Reform, a pro-euro think-tank with close ties to the European Commission. "The single currency was supposed to bring Europe together, but it risks becoming a source of economic dislocation and political division," begins the report, a 59-page demolition of EMU by the centre's business chief, Simon Tilford. As The Daily Telegraph's Brussels correspondent, I used to meet for furtive lunches with a Commission economist who was so worried about the coming smash-up that he had switched his savings into "hard" currencies, choosing foreign accounts beyond EU reach. I joke not. He knew, from his ringside seat, that the single currency had been thrust on Europe by the Delors crowd for entirely political reasons in the face of vehement warnings from the pros at the Directorate of Economic and Monetary Affairs. How to ensure the eurozone does not unravel What are the circumstances under which the eurozone could disintegrate? A departure by Italy or Spain, or both, would not suffice. However, it is extremely difficult to construct even a purely theoretical scenario under which it would make sense for France or Germany to reintroduce national currencies. A decision to quit would never pay off for the quitter in the short run. The administrative costs would be crippling, financial markets would be in turmoil and the quitter would almost certainly have to pay higher risk premiums on its bonds. Den gemensamma valutan är integrationens mest synliga tecken, och
förmodligen det mest långtgående steget mot en europeisk gemenskap Otmar Issing, Europe's high priest of monetary orthodoxy, has confessed that the euro was launched on flawed foundations and is now threatened by "big tensions" between north and south. Otmar Issing, Europe's high priest of monetary orthodoxy, has confessed that the euro was launched on flawed foundations and is now threatened by "big tensions" between north and south. In a parting shot before stepping down today as the European Central Bank's chief economist, and dominant force, Dr Issing said the stark differences in wage inflation across the eurozone were storing up future trouble. While he did not name the culprits, Dr Issing was clearly fingering the Club Med quartet of Portugal, Greece, Italy, and Spain, all of which failed to kick their inflationary habits after joining EMU. He said the euro project was launched before the building blocks were in place. "The proper functioning of a monetary union requires flexible labour and good markets. These conditions have not been fulfilled from the start." Dr Issing has been Frankfurt's intellectual powerhouse since the early 1990s, infusing the fledgling euro-bank with the ethos and monetary discipline of the revered Bundesbank, where he had also been chief economist. A loyal public servant, he has never questioned the euro's viability, but it is an open secret that he long favoured a core currency limited to France, Germany and Benelux, and doubted whether the euro could survive as an orphan currency without the backing of full political union. Paul de Grauwe, professor of economics at the University of Leuven in Belgium and an adviser to Mr Barroso, fears that a lack of political integration is undermining the single currency project. The Italian election result was a disaster for Italy and is a threat to the future of the euro. The narrow election victory by Romano Prodi’s centre-left alliance was the worst imaginable outcome in terms of Italy’s chances to remain in the eurozone beyond 2015. Spricker EMU? Italy’s seven years within the eurozone seem consistent with Dante’s famous inscription at the entrance of hell: “Abandon all hope, ye that enter”. Italy follows Argentina down road to ruin Try reissuing the 12 national currencies that were replaced with just one. At a seminar in London this month organized by the think tank Open Europe, John Gillingham, professor of history at the University of Missouri-St Louis, said it was time to look at radical options to change the way the euro area's economy is run. "The currencies of the euroland should be reissued and any attempt to regulate the values of the currencies by an overall single monetary and fiscal straight jacket should be dropped," said Gillingham, who wrote the book "Design for a New Europe". It might seem odd to listen to forecasts on monetary matters from a historian rather than an economist. Then again, the euro is primarily a historical achievement - which may help explain why it has gone wrong. Of course, the debate has been here before. (You don't need to be a professor of history to know there are very few genuinely new ideas in the world.) As far back as 1990, then British Chancellor John Major proposed a new European currency that would circulate alongside the existing national ones. It wasn't accepted then because everyone was focused on creating a single currency that would replace the others. Now, perhaps it has more chance. Why? Because in 1990 you could still argue a single currency would deliver stronger growth. It is hard to argue that in 2006. There are only three ways forward. One is to struggle on with a permanently sluggish economy. Another is to wait for a financial crisis, or a bad-tempered exit (probably by Italy). The third is to preserve what is good about the euro, while repairing the parts that don't work. Design for a New Europe at Amazon Will EMU survive 2010? Germany entered EMU with an overvalued exchange rate, but it has regained competitiveness through a process that used to be called ‘competitive deflation’, i.e. extracting continuous concessions from trade unions on labour costs. By contrast, Italy has continuously lost competitiveness, and the French performance has again been ‘middling’. Somewhat surprisingly, the export performance of France is even worse than that of Italy, suggesting a corresponding lack of structural reforms. Unnoticed by many, an even more severe disequilibrium is building up in the case of Spain, which so far has been regarded as a success story. The remainder of this decade is thus likely to see the North and the South of Europe trading places: Germany is likely to emerge with the strongest growth once its real estate market has bottomed out, whereas Italy and Spain are likely to experience a period of weak growth as their labour markets struggle with the problem of how to regain competitiveness through lower wages and extracting concessions on working time. The real test for the EMU framework is thus likely to arise over the remainder of this decade. Once Germany has brought its public finances under control (probably around 2007), the pressure will mount on Italy whose relative position is likely to have deteriorated further. Over time, the global savings glut is likely to end and global interest rates are likely to return to more normal levels. The ‘one size fits all’ policy of the ECB is then likely to become very difficult to bear for countries like Spain and Italy, which will then have to enter a period of very low increases, or even declining, domestic price levels. A combination of slow growth, rising real interest rates and increasing pressures from Brussels to reduce spending will make EMU unpopular in these countries. Spanish banks doubled their share of the ECB’s weekly funding auctions, The European Central Bank has effectively funded new lending in Spain in recent months, replacing banks’ use of wholesale capital markets, which have been strangled by the global credit crunch. The market for securitised debt and for mortgage-backed bonds in particular has been almost entirely shut since the credit crunch hit last summer and investors began shunning complex, structured debt. The Spanish banking system is second only to the UK in Europe in its use of mortgage-backed bond markets and other securitisations to fund lending. Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the ECB, last week insisted the central bank had not been bailing out banks in Spain, but said there had been a marked increase in use of securitised bonds as collateral by Spanish banks and others. Yet if the storm is peaking in the US, it has hardly begun in Europe. "Some thougths about the future of the euro" Professor Paul de Grauwe Since the start of the year, the Spanish economy has felt like a huge party on the Titanic,
cruising heedlessly on to an iceberg of corporate debt. “Spain is different!” the over-borrowed say. There won’t be a property crash – foreigners will always want a place in the sun. “International investors only care about one thing, your exposure to the real estate sector,” laments one Spanish banker. Although house prices are not falling yet, house sales are. According to the association of Spanish property registrars, property sales fell 7 per cent in 2006. This year, building permits have been issued for 800,000 new homes. And while not all will come on to the market this year, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the Spanish real estate market is over-heated, over-priced and over-supplied. One serious open question if whether the countries – Italy, Portugal, Spain, Greece - that have experienced a significant loss of competitiveness and real exchange rate misalignment will be able implement reforms that will increase productivity growth, reduce relative unit labor costs and allow them to regain their lost competitiveness. Euro helps topple Spanish property Miguel Fernandez Ordonez, the Bank of Spain's governor, blamed the bubble on the wrong interest rates caused by euro membership. Bernard Connolly, global strategist for Banque AIG and former head of economic research for the European Commission, said the country will face a brutal adjustment over the next two years - if it can remain in the euro at all.  Last year alone, Spain started to build 800,000 new homes Spain has experienced a roaring economic expansion, in part fuelled by low interest rates caused by sluggish growth in other parts of the eurozone. - In any dynamic modern economy the size of the US or the European Union there are bound to be significant regional differences in economic performance. Economic policy tries to assuage such differences and set up automatic stabilising mechanisms by which they become self-correcting. Movements in exchange rates can act as such an automatic stabiliser. Lawrence Lindsey Financial Times 1996-11-28 Disbelief has been suspended. Whenever I mention rising interest rates, higher mortgage payments, creeping unemployment, the possibility of falling house prices, fingers are stuffed in ears, eyes are tightly shut and heads shake wildly. No, no, no. Go away. The pain in Spain Shares in Spanish construction companies have collapsed like haciendas in an earthquake. Years of cheap loans, chronic over-supply of housing (facilitated by corrupt planning officials) and dodgy investment schemes, peddled to gullible foreigners, created an unsustainable boom. The bust is going to Costa lot, especially for thousands of Britons who borrowed heavily to buy a home in the sun, expecting rental income to pay the mortgage. The pain in Spain is a timely reminder that rampant bull markets can make ordinary people mistake themselves for financial wizards. Do current account deficits matter inside a monetary union? In Spain, the construction and housing sector accounts for 18.5 per cent of gross domestic product, The booms in Spanish and Irish real estate make the US real estate boom look timid By importing the credibility of the European Central Bank, they benefit from low nominal interest rates, in spite of their vivid growth and consequent higher than average inflation. Thus in addition to the global savings glut which exercised downward pressure on nominal interest rates, both countries exhibit very low real interest rates. In fact, the total value of mortgage debt in Ireland tripled over the 2000-2005 horizon, and mortgage lending is still growing at a 20% pace. Spanish lending is still growing at a 23.6% pace. Given that in Ireland 83% of total outstanding mortgage debt in 2005 and in Spain, 97% of the debt is at variable rate interest, households are considerably exposed to interest rate hikes. A decade of red-hot growth in the Spanish housing market fueled a jump in such things as jobs and consumer spending, turning Spain into one of the fastest-growing countries in the euro zone. Byggkrasch nära i Spanien Italy is often mentioned as the country most likely to leave the euro. I disagree. Italy is often mentioned as the country most likely to leave the euro. I disagree. Leaving the euro would not solve any of Italy’s problems. Since Italy’s debt is mostly euro-denominated, Italy would be facing an Argentinian-style debt crisis. A wise Italian politician told me recently that Italy was more likely to disintegrate as a nation state than to leave the euro. If any country ever decided to quit, unlikely as this may be, that country would be Spain, not Italy. Over the past seven years, Spain has lost even more competitiveness against the eurozone than Italy. At the same time, Spain is also in a better position to quit. With a debt-to-gross-domestic-product ratio of just over 40 per cent, Spain would have no problem servicing its debts. Unlike Italy, Spain enjoys the reputation of a European success story. But its economic success rests on shaky ground. It was driven by a housing bubble, during which average property prices have increased almost threefold since 1997. The US and UK housing markets have been well behaved by comparison. The house-price bubble has kept the Spanish economy ticking over – and overshadowed Spain’s underlying problem of falling competitiveness. Successive Spanish governments have failed to put in place the one condition essential for a country to prosper in the eurozone in the long run – a sufficient degree of wage and price flexibility. The country’s current account deficit for the first 11 months of 2005 reached 7.3 per cent of GDP. In its latest autumn forecast, the European Commission put the current account deficit at 8.3 per cent this year, and 9.1 per cent in 2007. These are unsustainable levels. More about house prices at internetional.se On Friday I was in Davos in a panel on the "Ups and Downs of EMU" (European Monetary Union) where ECB head Trichet, Italian Economy Minister Tremont, a few other EU officials and myself were supposed to discuss the following questions: Unlike the other panelist that ignored the topic and spoke instead about all the good things allegedly associated with EMU, I took the questions seriously by considering some of the problems and risks faced by EMU and the risks of a break-up, especially for the case of Italy. My remarks caused a stir with Minister Tremonti who interrupted me in the middle of my remarks, went into a temper tantrum and shouted - to the consternation of all participants - to me: "Go Back to Turkey!!". I happen to have been born in Istanbul; but more than offensive to myself his pathetic burst of uncivilized anger was an insult to the decent Turks who are currently trying to negotiate an agreement to enter into the EU. My current concerns are that, while EMU has lead to a process of convergence of nominal variables (inflation, interest rates, etc.). it has also been associated with a process of increased divergence in economic performance, especially regarding economic growth rates. This economic performance divergence is a serious problem for some EMU countries (Italy, Portugal, Greece) and it may eventually lead to a collapse of EMU. I am not supportive of such a collapse but, unless appropriate macro and structural economic policies are undertaken, the risk of a break-up becomes serious. The risks that eventually Italy may exit EMU cannot be underestimated. See also: Frits Bolkestein, the former EU internal market commissioner, has questioned the chances of survival for the euro in the long term.
The ageing of Europe's population will hit the continent "ruthlessly," the outspoken Dutch politician stated, with eurozone states like Italy being unprepared for the expected jump in pension claims. Will all the 12 countries in Europe's single currency remain members in three or four decades? WILL all the 12 countries in Europe's single currency remain members in three or four decades? The question may seem imponderable. But euro-area governments floating 30- or even 50-year bonds are asking investors to ponder it nonetheless. S&P assumes that countries such as Italy and Greece would want to regain their own currency only to debauch it. Both have lost competitiveness since the 1990s. Italy's unit labour costs are projected to be 27% higher by the end of 2006; Greek costs have increased by almost half. In S&P's simulations, the Italian government announces a surprise exit from the euro on the last day of 2006, and promptly devalues the new lira by 27%. The Greeks devalue by 49%. Both countries would thus recoup, at a stroke, the competitiveness they have lost. Unfortunately, their debts would still be payable in euros. Of course, I will be challenged on my views on Europe and my opposition to the British intervention in Iraq. Europe should concentrate on building jobs, enterprise and competitiveness with a real attack on unnecessary regulation. Ken Clarke’s dismissal of the euro as a “failure” is like a cardinal telling us that God doesn’t really exist. The sceptical voice of the former UK Conservative chancellor adds to the chorus of pessimism about the euro that has reached a crescendo after the No votes in the French and Dutch referendums. I agree with him that the cautious approach to entry by Gordon Brown, the current chancellor of the exchequer, is right at the present time. But is the euro really a “failure”? There are two new, contradictory arguments for pessimism. The first is that the European Central Bank’s common monetary policy is a cause of slow growth. The second concern is that Germany, far from languishing under the euro, is showing signs of economic improvement, potentially creating an unsustainable divergence with Italy (and others). Either, it is said, could lead the single currency to collapse. There is a serious issue about whether the “one size fits all” monetary policy is restricting growth, particularly in Germany Let us again suppose that A reforms and B does not. En rad länder i västra Europa plågas av en ihållande ekonomisk kris. Arbetslösheten stiger och tillväxten sjunker. I Tyskland, Italien och Frankrike - liksom Sverige - tilltar svårigheterna trots god konjunktur och låg ränta. Ekonomisk politik kan fokusera på antingen strukturella reformer eller stimulanser av konjunkturen. Det senare kan utgöras av finanspolitik eller penningpolitik. Båda är dock bara olika former av klassisk keynesiansk stimulanspolitik. En gemensam valuta, som i Hayeks anda för bort penningpolitiken från nationella politiker, stänger likt en guldmyntfot möjligheten att fuska sig ur problem och främjar därför reformer.
Kommentar av Rolf Englund: Därigenom måste Munkhammars slutsats bli att det behövs supply-side economics, som i USA. Sedan moderaterna, efter att ha tappat var tredje väljare, övergav den Munkhammarska systemskiftespolitiken, strömmarna väljarna till. It is economic performance – not the European Union budget or any proposed constitution – that will determine the fate of the “European Project”. European Central Bank council member Christian Noyer: Noyer, also governor of France's central bank, told French National Assembly's foreign affairs committee last week, according to minutes of the closed hearing released today. Such a move may put in doubt a nation's continued membership of the European Union, he said. For the first time, respectable voices - i.e., those deemed respectable by the European elite - "Det finns ingen anledning till oro" Weakening economies in Europe have translated into rising pressure for political change. The previously noted loss by Germany’s left-of-center SPD Party of North Rhine–Westphalia in the May 2005 election has been likened to the Republicans carrying New York and California in a presidential election. Clearly, it is not politically viable for even a left-leaning German government to try to rein in social costs while the German economy is so weak. The unemployment rate is above 11 percent, and growth is slipping toward zero. The poor performance of some European economies and the unevenness of performance among them--Spain, Ireland, and even France are still experiencing strong growth and strong real estate markets--is a byproduct of Europe’s bold currency experiment in which full currency union preceded political union. The more serious problem is the moral-hazard issue that arises in a monetary union with one central bank oriented toward low inflation and twelve treasuries with sharply differing economic systems to manage. The expedient move by the Italian government would be to borrow heavily in order to finance a large fiscal stimulus to boost Italy out of its recession. The effective peg between interest rates on Italian government liabilities and German government liabilities means that the Italians will be under increasing pressure to employ Keynesian fiscal stimulus to boost their economy. The Italian Finance Ministry answers to the Italian government, not to the European Central Bank, thus the institutional bias to use deficit finance to boost the economy out of recession. Lord Lamont was UK chancellor of the exchequer 1990-93 and is co-chairman of the Bruges Group Six years ago, 11 European nations made a bold bet that a common currency would unify and fortify the continent from Sicily to Helsinki. Now, as many of the nations in what is known as the euro zone slog through an economic funk, The euro-bashing isn't confined to Italy. A poll for Stern magazine this month found that 56% of Germans want the mark back. "Breakup is back on the radar screen as a theoretically possible option" for the monetary union, says Holger Fahrinkrug, an economist at Swiss bank UBS in Frankfurt. "It would have been better for Italy to stay out [of the euro] for a few years," says Julian Callow, chief European economist at Barclays Capital in London. "There's no easy solution now." Is the euro forever? A rising tide of integrationist ambition swept the single currency on to the European shore in the 1990s. I en viktig fråga är EMU-projektets varmaste anhängare och argaste kritiker helt överens: för att valutaunionen ska hålla, måste den förr eller senare leda till politisk union. The French and Dutch referendums have dashed hopes of political union in Europe. Finns euron kvar om 15 år? Varför överlevde valutaunionerna i USA, Kanada, Tyskland och Italien, till skillnad från de skandinaviska och latinska mynt-unionerna? Jo, de var en del i arbetet med att skapa en nationalstat. För amerikanerna tog det 150 år att uppnå en fungerande monetär union... Ännu på 1920- och 1930-talen rådde en oenighet mellan regionerna om penningpolitiken, vilket lade grunden för den paralysering som i sin tur bidrog till att skapa den stora depressionen. Om Tyskland fortfarande haft en egen valuta skulle man kunnat devalvera sig ur de senaste årens kostnadskris. Men i stället har landet pressat ner kostnadsläget den hårda vägen, genom arbetslöshet och sänkta reallöner. Hur länge orkar Europa färdas på det spåret? Nu riktas blickarna mot Italien, som har förlorat sin konkurrenskraft på grund av fallande produktivitet och finansiell oreda. Martin Wolf i Financial Times tecknade i förra veckan en mörk framtidsbild, i vilken italienarna känner sig så pressade att de sliter sig loss från EMU. Så här i backspegeln måste 1990-talet betraktas som ett osedvanligt lyckosamt decennium, i väntan på det stora ovädret. Could the eurozone disintegrate? - The answer is yes. Tyskland har gjort många fel. Ett allvarligt fel var att gå in i EMU med en för högt värderad valuta. Ja, det är ju inget konstruktionsfel, det blir så med en gemensam valuta. In an interview with the daily La Repubblica
Top The under-fire euro fell further on Wednesday, slumping to an eight-month low EU will never become a federation with a unique federal government, federal army and international personality. The writer, a member of the European Commission between 1999 and 2004, is author of The Limits of Europe (Lannoo) and his Brussels diary Grensverkenningen (Prometheus) The Common Agricultural Policy and regional development funds do not respect this rule. They urgently need reform. Why should German citizens pay for the upkeep of the landscape in France? What makes the bureaucrats in Brussels believe they are better judges of French regional policy than their colleagues in Paris? All non-essential bits of these programmes should be repatriated. That would also help to slim the EU budget. The EU is a group of states that have decided to carry out certain tasks in a federal manner, such as trade and competition policy. The federal framework applies to the European parliament, the European Court of Justice and (for 12 of the 25 member states) the European Central Bank. But the EU will never become a federation with a unique federal government, federal army and international personality. The reason is that member states do not want that: not Britain, and not France either. Nor do the Germans want it, even though Joschka Fischer, their foreign minister, spoke some years ago of a "federation of nation states". That concept is a contradiction in terms. In using it, Mr Fischer underestimated his audience. It is an example of the eurobabble that other politicians have unfortunately emulated. The principle of subsidiarity, which means that whatever member states can do equally well (or better) should not be undertaken by the Union. This principle has been obeyed more in theory than in practice. The trouble is that the institutional bias is always to propose more. The European parliament wants the EU to do everything. The European Commission displays the normal bureaucratic instinct: more tasks mean more jobs and more money. And often a member of the Council of Ministers tries to achieve through Brussels what they cannot get at home. Many politicians mistake activity for action. An EU of 40 is inevitable unless stopped by a referendum, The second problem, Bolkestein warned, is that immigration is The Limits of Europe Never Closer Union? Before the vote, Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg's prime minister and current president of the European Council, declared that France and the Netherlands should re-run their referendums, if necessary, in order to obtain the "right answer". Mr Juncker is all too representative of the contemporary European elite, which does not merely deserve, but needs, the kicking the French have given it. When the French look at contemporary Europe, they no longer see themselves in the mirror and when they look at their economy, they no longer see anybody in control. First, the treaty is dead. I presume the Dutch will vote No. If the British cannot be threatened with isolation, they will also reject it. It is impossible to overturn the verdicts of the disgruntled citizens of two of the six founding members and two of the three most powerful countries in Europe. Further movement towards deeper integration among all members of the EU is off the agenda. The Europe we have today is as much as - quite possibly more than - all will share. Enlargement beyond Bulgaria and Romania has become unlikely. There will be referendums on Turkish entry. In current circumstances, these would be lost. France has set its face not just against the European project but against the modern world. That is going to make it far more difficult to pursue liberalisation, domestically, within Europe and globally. For that outcome, the French elite bear heavy responsibility. Their ceaseless indulgence in infantile anti-market rhetoric has had its consequence. Last but not least, there is a chance of some unravelling of the European project, which has relied on a version of the bicycle theory: if it does not go forward, it risks toppling over. The belief that it must go forward is now dead. It is possible that some achievements, including the single market, will go backwards. A currency union requires greater flexibility and so more intense internal competition than independent national monetary areas. The failure to make this clear before starting the union was the great political and economic blunder of the 1990s. Rolf Englund: The Economist also wrote that Not bad for being written in 1997... This is just a foretaste of what could happen once investors start to think through the euro's long-term chances of survival in a "post-federal" Europe that is no longer moving ineluctably towards ever-closer union. Hubristic talk that the euro would soon displace the dollar as the world's reserve currency has been silenced by a flurry of analysts' reports warning that monetary union is becoming unmanageable and could collapse, leaving holders of Italian, Greek and Portuguese state bonds with a wicked haircut. Italy's Confundistria chief, Luca Cordero de Montezemolo, believes his country is now staring into the abyss. Its world share of exports has collapsed by almost one third since the launch of EMU. The economy has contracted for the last two quarters and is now accelerating downwards. "The political class doesn't seem to understand the dramatic condition of our public finances, and above all the real economy. This is the worst crisis since the war. We must face up to the emergency with brave, urgent, and unpopular measures," he says. Portugal, Greece and Italy slipped into monetary union with false figures - or "statistical alchemy" in the words of Eurostat - and debt loads that breach the Maastricht limits. They enjoyed a quick windfall from ECB's far lower rates, but the wealth illusion proved poisonous. It let Italy fend off structural reform, and led to a mighty boom and bust in Greece and Portugal. Paul Krugman about the break-up of EMU
Here's how the story has been told: a year or two or three after the introduction of the euro, a recession develops in part - but only part - of Europe. This creates a conflict of interest between countries with weak economies and populist governments - read Italy, or Spain, or anyway someone from Europe's slovenly south - and those with strong economies and a steely-eyed commitment to disciplined economic policy - read Germany. The weak economies want low interest rates, and wouldn't mind a bit of inflation; but Germany is dead set on maintaining price stability at all cost. Nor can Europe deal with "asymmetric shocks" the way the United States does, by transferring workers from depressed areas to prosperous ones: Europeans are reluctant to move even within their countries, let alone across the many language barriers. The result is a ferocious political argument, and perhaps a financial crisis, as markets start to discount the bonds of weaker European governments. In spite of interest rates at historic lows, strong world demand, low inflation and healthy corporate profitability, the eurozone growth outlook is gloomy. The European Commission 29 June formally asked the Italian government to take measures to get back in line with eurozone rules.
On 5 December 2006, the Commission adopted the Convergence Report 2006, which re-assessed the conditions for adopting the euro in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Cyprus, Latvia, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Sweden. The ECB published its own report on the same day. Sverige bör, liksom England, hålla sig utanför euron så länge som möjligt. Han går därmed på kollisionskurs med det svenska näringsliv som annars hyllar hans tongivande teser för liberal globalisering. "Det är bara länder som inte kan sköta sin penningpolitik själva som behöver den. För länder som kan sköta sin penningpolitik är det mycket bättre att stå utanför euron och på så vis skapa en stabil ekonomisk-politisk miljö istället för att införa euron och därmed riskera en penningpolitik som är ’quite inappropriate for you." 2004 kom hans banbrytande bok ”Why Globalization Works” där han bland annat detaljgranskar globaliseringskritiken och ger den fel på nästan samtliga områden utom att vissa internationella institutioner, såsom WTO, inte fungerat ”så bra som de borde”.
Nu har boken översatts till Svenska (SNS förlag) men den är inte skriven för svenskar, säger Martin Wolf lite skämtsamt: Let us think the unthinkable: Disappearance of the zone as a whole seems hugely unlikely, so long as the commitment to the European project survives. But the exit of one (or more) members, a sovereign default or both is not at all inconceivable. Interest rate spreads within the eurozone are tiny. Investors apparently consider the debt of the eurozone governments as close to perfect substitutes. This is astonishing: after all, ratios of government debt to gross domestic product at the end of last year varied from Luxembourg's 5 per cent and Ireland's 29 per cent to Italy's 105 per cent and Greece's 112 per cent Investors must not only believe that the currency union is impregnable but that each sovereign borrower is as good as the other. The latter belief assumes that all the fiscal authorities will behave in an equally responsible manner or that there is an implicit bail-out. These assumptions are highly implausible. Relative to Germany, Italy's real effective exchange rate has appreciated by almost one-fifth since 1999. In its most recent Economic Outlook, the OECD notes that the cyclically adjusted primary fiscal balance (the balance before interest payments) has collapsed from a surplus of 5 per cent of gross domestic product in 1998 to a forecast surplus of only 1 per cent this year In order to regain lost external competitiveness, Italy must have substantially lower inflation in the costs of tradeable goods and services than elsewhere in the eurozone. Unfortunately, efforts to shift the fiscal position back to balance would weaken the economy still more, since there are no monetary or exchange-rate offsets to such fiscal tightening. (Rolf Englund: That is the main point with EMU. If that is not a good thing -
which I do no think it is,
than the whole EMU project is fundamentally wrong. Bad thinking - as stupid as the Stability Pact. Why do you do stupid things like that? Because you need a flag, a parliament, a president, a defence - and a currency - to build a state.) Martin Wolf continues: If you think you have seen a case a bit like this, you are right: it is called Argentina. Bernard Connolly, a notorious opponent of the monetary union, even argues that the debt ratio will explode upwards, given the low inflation Italy needs and the declining potential rate of growth that Italy also has Mr Connolly's assumptions seem too pessimistic, particularly over the present fiscal position. But the underlying point is strong: managing the fiscal position of a country that suffers from structurally weak productivity growth, a large loss of international competitiveness and an irrevocably fixed exchange rate (or, in Italy's case, no exchange rate at all) is challenging, to say the least. I do not wish to be misunderstood. So let me be clear. I am not saying that the eurozone will disintegrate, or that Italy is doomed to Argentina's fate either. I am saying that tough choices and tougher times do lie ahead. Only with radical structural reforms, the most disciplined wage behaviour and the greatest possible fiscal rigour can a country in Italy's predicament sustain stability and return to healthy growth. If the country fails to rise to the challenge it confronts, a default or even a forced withdrawal from the eurozone is perfectly conceivable.Could we be headed for some sort of crisis within the EU? If the No vote wins in France It is almost impossible to overstate the importance of the French referendum Utan Europas förenta stater kommer EMU att spränga EU – Om EMU inte skulle fungera ekonomiskt, kan man ha hur vackra
argument som helst för – det kommer ändå att haverera. The eurozone is a monetary federation without a federal budget. This unstable situation can evolve in two ways. One is implosion through political tensions between member states An emergency plan for dealing with a European financial crisis was agreed at the weekend The chancellor's proposal may be the first sign of an unravelling of the underlying fundamentals of the euro. The trouble is that immigration looks more and more like the first problem that requires Europeans to choose definitively between European and national sovereignty. Nations can lay down the law on immigration, and so can the EU. But any mixed regime of EU standards and local immigration quotas will collapse of its own illogic
What would happen if one of the 25 member states of the European Union refused to ratify the constitutional treaty? EMU ökar spänningarna i medlemsländerna Tyskland, Italien och Nederländerna har för låg tillväxt. Samtidigt riskerar Irland, Grekland och Spanien överhettning. Den europeiska centralbanken, ECB, har ett omöjligt jobb. Deras ränta blir fel för några länder hur de än gör. Och det kan bli ännu värre i framtiden.
”Jag tror att man ska räkna med att länderna inte går fas. Situationen som man ser i dag tror jag inte ska uppfattas som extrem. Det kommer att uppkomma situationer där konjunkturutvecklingen skiljer sig mycket mer åt mellan länderna än i dag”, säger Lars Calmfors Stark euro tynger Framför allt Tyskland, men även Nederländerna, skulle behöva en lägre styrränta för att få fart på ekonomin. Tillväxten är låg samtidigt som resursutnyttjandet och därmed också inflationstrycket är lågt. Samtidigt slår den starka euron hårt mot konkurrenskraften för exportföretagen. Det är |
