Euro’s big four agree growth boost, split on bonds

UPDATED @ 11:58:33 PM 22-06-2012

June 22, 2012

French President Francois Hollande, Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy take their seats for a meeting at Villa Madama in Rome June 22, 2012. — Reuters pic

ROME, June 22 — The leaders of Germany, France, Italy and Spain agreed today on a €130 billion (RM650 billion) package to try to revive economic growth in Europe but differed over whether and how to launch joint bonds to combat the euro zone’s debt crisis. After a four-way summit in Rome’s Renaissance Villa Madama, Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti said the European Union should adopt a series of growth measures worth about one per cent of the region’s gross domestic product at a summit next week.
“Growth can only have solid roots if there is fiscal discipline, but fiscal discipline can be maintained only if there is growth and job creation,” Monti told a joint news conference after talks that lasted just an hour and 40 minutes.
The growth measures, already in the works in Brussels, include increasing the European Investment Bank’s capital, redirecting unspent EU regional funds and launching project bonds to co-finance major public investment programmes.
No new measures were announced today.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who leads Europe’s most powerful economy and the main contributor to its rescue funds, endorsed the growth package but made no mention of any move towards mutualising past euro zone debt or new borrowing.
French President Francois Hollande appeared to voice impatience with Berlin’s reluctance, saying it should not take 10 years to create jointly underwritten euro bonds.
He said greater solidarity was needed among member states before they abandon more sovereignty to EU institutions. The German position essentially amounts to the reverse.
“I consider euro bonds to be an option ... but not in 10 years,” Hollande said in a direct challenge to the chancellor. “There can be no transfer of sovereignty if there is not an improvement in solidarity.”
Merkel has argued members of the 17-nation currency union must transfer control over national budget and economic policies to Brussels before Germany would consider common debt issuance.
Their contrasting comments left much work for diplomats to produce a convincing blueprint for closer fiscal and banking union at a full EU summit next Thursday and Friday, which Monti called a defining moment in the crisis.
That plan is expected to include the first steps towards a banking union, starting by putting the European Central Bank in charge of supervising large cross-border euro zone banks.
Spanish bailout?
Dangerously high Spanish borrowing costs have eased a little on market hopes for policy initiatives at the Brussels summit. If it falls short, Madrid may be pushed closer to eventually needing a sovereign bailout.
Without a convincing result, “there would be progressively greater speculative attacks on individual countries, with harassment of the weaker countries”, Monti said in an interview with several European newspapers ahead of the mini-summit.
“A large part of Europe would find itself having to continue to put up with very high interest rates that would then impact on the states and also indirectly on firms. This is the direct opposite of what is needed for economic growth,” he said.
The technocratic Italian premier, who needs a success to shore up his weakening domestic authority, sounded slightly more optimistic after the talks, saying next week’s summit should “put at ease the financial markets’ expectations”, switching to English to add: “The euro is here to stay and we all mean it.”
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, on the brink of requesting up to €100 billion in euro zone rescue funds to recapitalise struggling banks, said the four had agreed “to use any necessary mechanism to obtain financial stability in the euro zone”.
An audit released yesterday found Spanish banks would need up to €62 billion in extra capital to weather adverse circumstances.
After a meeting of euro zone finance ministers late yesterday, IMF chief Christine Lagarde demanded rapid progress on a number of other fronts, raising the heat on Merkel.
Lagarde said a banking union was a top priority, alongside fiscal union and the principle of mutualising debt. Germany refuses to countenance common bond issuance and will not soften until economic union is complete. It is also opposed to the early introduction of a bloc-wide bank deposit guarantee scheme.
High stakes for Monti
While Spain’s needs are most pressing — its medium term borrowing costs hit a euro era high at auction yesterday — the political stakes may be higher for Italy’s Monti.
With his popularity sinking, the parties that back Monti in parliament are increasingly reluctant to support his reform proposals at home, but demand he get results in the European arena to ease the pressure on Italy’s recession-bound economy.
“Monti knows he has to get his ducks in a row on the European side so he can tell the parties that he’s sorted that part out, and now it’s their turn to help sort out Italy,” said James Walston, politics professor at Rome’s American University.
Though hugely popular when he came to office in November, Monti’s approval rating has halved as tax hikes and pension cuts exacerbated an already severe recession, and his labour reform estranged both unions and the business establishment.
But for the markets, Monti remains the man most likely to tackle Italy’s debt mountain and uncompetitiveness. If he comes under serious threat, Italy could quickly supplant Spain as the euro zone’s main flashpoint.
Monti’s hand was weakened by comments on Wednesday by his predecessor, Silvio Berlusconi, who said the prospect of Italy quitting the euro was “not blasphemy” and that he failed to understand why it would hurt Italy’s economy.
Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party is one of the two main groups that guarantee Monti a majority in parliament.
Monti proposed on the sidelines of this week’s G20 summit using the euro zone’s rescue funds to buy the bonds of Spain and Italy to bring down their borrowing costs.
Hollande said after today’s talks he supported the Italian idea. But Merkel has played down the notion, which investors said might be counter-productive unless the European Central Bank stepped in decisively in support.
Other proposals from Monti, such as stripping some forms of public investment from budget deficit calculations, or commonly issued euro zone bonds, are also broadly supported by France and Spain but opposed by Germany, at least for now. — Reuters