Mostrar mensagens com a etiqueta Grécia. Mostrar todas as mensagens
Mostrar mensagens com a etiqueta Grécia. Mostrar todas as mensagens
30.8.12
Que se passa com a balança portuguesa de bens e serviços?
O Nº 2 do Barómetro das Crises do Centro de Estudos Sociais da Universidade de Coimbra dá uma boa imagem. Mostra como as exportações estão a crescer, mas se ressentiram fortemente em 2008 da crise económica internacional que os "teóricos do regabofe orçamental nacional" nunca viram. Recorda como continuamos a concentrar os nossos excedentes comerciais em calçado, têxteis e madeira e cortiça enquanto temos défices fortes nos combustíveis, máquinas e aparelhos e indústrias químicas. Regista que a diversificação de mercados existe, mas continuamos, sobretudo ligados à Alemanha e à Espanha e à UE no seu todo e, conclui com um paralelismo preocupante: do ponto de vista do comércio externo, Portugal não pode dizer que não é a Grécia.
Eis a conclusão dos autores do boletim sobre o reequilibrio em curso da balança de bens e serviços de Portugal:
O reequilíbrio da balança de bens e serviços não é, por si só, um sintoma de recuperação económica ou um atributo de uma economia pujante, sobretudo quando decorre de uma redução das importações obtida principalmente pela contração da procura interna. As políticas de austeridade em curso têm sido extremamente penalizadoras do consumo privado, do consumo público e do investimento.
De resto, o padrão de evolução das exportações, das importações e do saldo da balança de bens e serviços portuguesa apresenta uma notável similitude com o de outro país sujeito à mesma estratégia do “ajustamento estrutural”, a Grécia (...). No que diz respeito à evolução das exportações de bens e serviços, ambos os países registaram uma recuperação, no caso português mais intensa, após a quebra verificada no contexto da crise iniciada em 2008. As exportações de bens e serviços da Grécia revelam igualmente uma desaceleração do seu ritmo de crescimento a partir da segunda metade de 2011. No que diz respeito às importações a retração verificada na Grécia tem sido mais forte do que em Portugal.
Além do mais, a previsão de um reequilíbrio da balança de bens e serviços portuguesa depende de uma evolução favorável das exportações que está envolta em incerteza. A desaceleração económica observada no conjunto da União Europeia e, em particular, a recessão que atinge os países da Europa do Sul pode afetar negativamente a evolução das exportações nacionais. É de destacar as dificuldades que atravessa o principal destino das exportações portuguesas, a Espanha. (o link sobre a citação conduz ao texto integral do boletim)
28.11.11
The lack of democratic legitimacy in EU is now plain as day.
In my previous entry, a little over 3 weeks ago, I mentioned that Papandreou and Samaras agreed for a new guy to come in and do the same thing that Papandreou’s been doing until now, to hold elections in February and allow Samaras to be voted in to continue doing the same thing. I also noted that since mentioning the referendum, no indignatos have been on the streets and no major strikes backed by the left or the right have been held in Athens; something that continues to this day. This has particularly perplexed me, since I am of the opinion that an appointed government does not have democratic legitimacy and perhaps now is the time that the people should hit the streets, if we actually believe in some of our basic rights and freedoms. Moreover, there are several questions that I have as a result of all of this, some internal regarding the Greek political scene, and some of course, systemic and on a European level.
I will not bore you about our internal political workings for long, since this is indeed a Portugal based blog, but there are a couple of things that I should point out here. First of all, it indeed seemed like the entire political spectrum, all major actors including all major journalists and most of his own political party turned against Mr. Papandreou. OK, so he’s out. But now what? The same policy implemented by the mostly the same officials with a different head, it seems. What makes anybody think that the austerity measures will now work? And if our new banker PM, his name eludes me at this time of night, hands away power on the 19th of February as scheduled and calls elections, the next PM, will do the same, regardless of political “ideology” or colour. So why did we go through all of this in the first place?
As I’m sure most of the world now agrees and as several have been contending for the last two years, the problem is obviously systemic in nature. In my discipline, international relations, we typically study problems at the system, state and personal levels and as with any international question, the European dept crisis, how it arose and how it has been dealt with, in order to be explained and possibly solved (as I mentioned in my previous entry, it is my strong belief that a “solution” can ONLY be political rather than economic in nature), must be looked at wholistically from each perspective. As a student, I usually leaned towards the systemic level of analysis as I believed that these types of analyses had the strongest arguments. For our current predicament, such an analysis is definitely beyond the scope of my simple scribblings, but although we have strong arguments for state and personal levels of analyses, the systemic approach would win again. I’ll go over what I mean very briefly.
On the state level, we have the internal workings of the countries that are involved in any given crisis, and how these workings contributed to the climax (which I do not think we have yet reached regarding our Eurozone woes just yet). In Greece since achieving Eurozone status, we have had easy access to cheap money, did not invest it properly, were not able to transform our quasi-communist market into a competitive machine. Nevertheless, several Greek companies made it outside of Greece, we were excellent consumers for German and French products services and especially military equipment (.. hint, hint..). Hence, bust. I cannot say what the problems were in Portugal. I can say that Spain does not seem to have such large structural problems (dept is only 61% of GDP, but they are on their way to IMF) and I could go into Irelands’ banking problems, but only as an outsider. Once it became clear that the EU was in a crisis situation, the German internal state checks and ballances did not allow “a single euro for the Greeks”, their press, and even bureacracy and executive painted us as lazy womanizing waiters.
At the Individual level of analysis, there is not much to be said. In Greece the incopetency of Kostas Karamanlis and George Papandreou are well documented. The first was elected twice by implementing a crony regime through which primary dept increased by 80 billion between 2004-2009. The second was elected by telling people in 2009 that “there is plenty of money to implement my programme” when the spreads were constantly increasing from 2008. The incompetency of Merkel to deal with such an issue is clearly evident and should not surprise anybody that knows she was born and raised in a command economy and cannot seem to grasp the notion of monetary policy. But again, I am an outsider. Nevertheless, I have to ask myself what would the situation be like if we had much more adept states-people in power the likes of Simitis, Baroso, Chirac and Schroder? As for Sarkozi, Socrates, Berlusconi and the rest of our great leaders, unfortunately my word limit does not allow me to comment.
What I can say, and what most of the world now realizes, is that the system seems to be flawed. It was the argument of all us PIIGS from the beginning, and we still cannot understand why the ECB cannot be a “FED-like” body, issuing Baroso-sanctioned Eurobonds, printing Euro to buy time; why the EIB cannot fund major “Marshal-like” plans across Europe to stimulate growth, especially when the problems of Portugal, Greece, Ireland and Spain all combined, in real numbers, are about equivalent to the problem of Italy. (For a further detailed analysis of the systemic “solution” a great source is the blog of Mr. Yianis Varoufakis http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/ It seems to me that some of his “alternative” ideas just may be implemented, with a 2 year delay of course). As far as I’m concerned, austerity has not and will not work, as it has not anywhere it has been implemented all over the world, ever.
The above solutions, pointing to a deeper Union, bring to light the key issue that has to be dealt with in my opinion on the EU level, that of legitimacy. I remember that since i was a student studying the quagmire of European institutions and their workings the question of lack of democracy for such power was called into question and a heated subject of academic literature. The lack of democratic legitimacy in EU is now plain as day. Who are all these people that define how much we make, how much we spend, where we spend it, our economic outlook and our future? These issues should have already been dealt with in a clear fashion and not with a general European Constitution as it was drafted in the past because it is now evident that economic union seems to mean de facto political union. It seems clear that Europe either moves to a more federal model now, or ceases to exist as we know it. This crisis, as with other crises before it(including for example Yugoslavia), has brought to the fore the classic conflicts regarding the Union itself.
Yannis Parcharidis.
He also contributed to this blog about the rationale of Papandreou's moves and what happened to Greece?
13.11.11
Greece: the rationale of Papandreou's moves since referendum's announcement (corrected and completed)
This post is reprinted because it was, by mistake, not printed completed. I regret the error and invite you to read the full version)
I belong to a small country. A rocky promontory in the Mediterranean, it has nothing to distinguish it but the efforts of its people, the sea, and the light of the sun.
Giorgos Seferis – Nobel Literature award Speech, 1963
Today it is expected that Greece will announce who will be the new prime minister that will “save us” from the dept crisis, successfully getting the green light from our European “partners” for the sixth instalment of the “bailout” package. Effectively what happened was that Papandreou and Samaras agreed for a new guy to come in and do the same thing that Papandreou’s been doing until now, to hold elections in February and allow Samaras to be voted in to continue doing the same thing. What is to be done is one question, but today I’d like to discuss a bit about this marriage.
On the last day of October, Papandreou surprised the world by announcing his plans to take the sixth loan treaty of the bailout package, including an agreed haircut of 50% Greece’s primary debt, to referendum. The world shook from Tokyo to Los Angeles. Every major stock market in the closed with losses up to 7%. Politically speaking, Merkel and Sarkozy were shocked and numbed by the news, Oly Ren and others were disgruntled with Greece’s ”unilateral”(!!??!!) decision to hold a referendum, Americans were vague in their reactions and other EU states had a generally negative response. Who would have ever suspected that the will of the people of such a small country could ever cause such global turmoil?
In Greece, there was a peculiar consensus amongst opposition parties, several MPs within PASOK ruling party and 100% of the press that were against the idea of the referendum. And I say peculiar because both right and left wing politicians were all demanding elections. Over 15 political dailies and countless web sites covering the entire political/ideological phasm known to man disagreed with Papandreou’s decision. The left had argued, correctly, that the PASOK government was elected on a different mandate than what they are implementing. The right had argued, correctly, that PASOK has proven incompetent to deal with such a huge crisis, without however noting that they have been against every measure, treaty and loan that has been agreed to, to date. The Indignatos on the streets of Athens and other Greek cities were dead against the austerity measures that hit their pockets, dreams and future directly. All, however, were against putting the decision in the hands of the people. And I ask the following: what were they afraid of?
In my view, the announcement for the referendum, whether a bluff or not, was a maverick political gamble that paid off 100% in the favour of the policy that has been adopted in order to confront the dept crisis and given the situation that PASOK has found itself in, and I explain:
1. It displayed just how important Greece and other members of the common currency are to its survival. Although it has been speculated over the last months that Greece is about the leave the Euro, and indeed Greece has been called upon to leave by several commentators, the actual „threat” of the referendum displayed just how catastrophic such an exit would be globally;
2. It forced New Democracy to the table, to finally take some of the political costs for a policy that, in reality, it agrees with;
3. It stripped the left of their legitimacy, placing the power in the hands of the people.
It is strange that since the announcement of the referendum, there have been no rallies in Athens backed by the left, no strikes by taxi drivers for example backed by the right, no indignatos at Syntagma square. In order to avoid any misconceptions, I should state that I do not agree fully with the austerity measures that have been taken, but since this path has been chosen, it is obvious that a consensus of at least the major political parties needed to be achieved. Both Spain and Portugal have achieved this. On several occasions Papandreou has attempted this in vain. Don’t get me wrong, I still think that Papandreou is generally not up to dealing with the dept crisis. However, my main quiff with Papandreou has to do with two issues. Firstly that indeed he was elected on a different mandate than what he is implementing, and I voted for him, something that will not occur again in the near future. He should have called elections long before accepting any bailout package. Second, and perhaps more importantly, he should have negotiated tougher with our „partners” for a complete solution to the systemic problem that faces the Eurozone from the beginning. Perhaps the latter would have pushed Ms. Merkel to adopting political decisions quickly instead of wasting two years. Perhaps it would have pushed Europe into deeper economic integration, something that seems now inevitable in order to stabilise the currency and assure some light at the end of the tunnel.
The only thing that keeps me at ease during these times of economic turmoil is that real power remains in the hands of politicians. Silly as this may sound given the incompetence and perhaps confused leadership that surrounds us, the essence remains that people still run countries, governments still have the ultimate legitimate authority within their borders and the duty to “protect” citizens and hence to manipulate the beast known as the markets, also known as capitalism when I was young. As Nobel peace winning Greek Poet Giorgos Seferis put it “In our gradually shrinking world, everyone is in need of all the others. We must look for man wherever we can find him. When on his way to Thebes Oedipus encountered the Sphinx, his answer to its riddle was: ‘Man’. That simple word destroyed the monster. We have many monsters to destroy. Let us think of the answer of Oedipus.”
Yannis Parcharidis
(he is kindly sharing his views on Greece with Banco Corrido's readers. See his previous text - What happened to Greece? - here)
I belong to a small country. A rocky promontory in the Mediterranean, it has nothing to distinguish it but the efforts of its people, the sea, and the light of the sun.
Giorgos Seferis – Nobel Literature award Speech, 1963
Today it is expected that Greece will announce who will be the new prime minister that will “save us” from the dept crisis, successfully getting the green light from our European “partners” for the sixth instalment of the “bailout” package. Effectively what happened was that Papandreou and Samaras agreed for a new guy to come in and do the same thing that Papandreou’s been doing until now, to hold elections in February and allow Samaras to be voted in to continue doing the same thing. What is to be done is one question, but today I’d like to discuss a bit about this marriage.
On the last day of October, Papandreou surprised the world by announcing his plans to take the sixth loan treaty of the bailout package, including an agreed haircut of 50% Greece’s primary debt, to referendum. The world shook from Tokyo to Los Angeles. Every major stock market in the closed with losses up to 7%. Politically speaking, Merkel and Sarkozy were shocked and numbed by the news, Oly Ren and others were disgruntled with Greece’s ”unilateral”(!!??!!) decision to hold a referendum, Americans were vague in their reactions and other EU states had a generally negative response. Who would have ever suspected that the will of the people of such a small country could ever cause such global turmoil?
In Greece, there was a peculiar consensus amongst opposition parties, several MPs within PASOK ruling party and 100% of the press that were against the idea of the referendum. And I say peculiar because both right and left wing politicians were all demanding elections. Over 15 political dailies and countless web sites covering the entire political/ideological phasm known to man disagreed with Papandreou’s decision. The left had argued, correctly, that the PASOK government was elected on a different mandate than what they are implementing. The right had argued, correctly, that PASOK has proven incompetent to deal with such a huge crisis, without however noting that they have been against every measure, treaty and loan that has been agreed to, to date. The Indignatos on the streets of Athens and other Greek cities were dead against the austerity measures that hit their pockets, dreams and future directly. All, however, were against putting the decision in the hands of the people. And I ask the following: what were they afraid of?
In my view, the announcement for the referendum, whether a bluff or not, was a maverick political gamble that paid off 100% in the favour of the policy that has been adopted in order to confront the dept crisis and given the situation that PASOK has found itself in, and I explain:
1. It displayed just how important Greece and other members of the common currency are to its survival. Although it has been speculated over the last months that Greece is about the leave the Euro, and indeed Greece has been called upon to leave by several commentators, the actual „threat” of the referendum displayed just how catastrophic such an exit would be globally;
2. It forced New Democracy to the table, to finally take some of the political costs for a policy that, in reality, it agrees with;
3. It stripped the left of their legitimacy, placing the power in the hands of the people.
It is strange that since the announcement of the referendum, there have been no rallies in Athens backed by the left, no strikes by taxi drivers for example backed by the right, no indignatos at Syntagma square. In order to avoid any misconceptions, I should state that I do not agree fully with the austerity measures that have been taken, but since this path has been chosen, it is obvious that a consensus of at least the major political parties needed to be achieved. Both Spain and Portugal have achieved this. On several occasions Papandreou has attempted this in vain. Don’t get me wrong, I still think that Papandreou is generally not up to dealing with the dept crisis. However, my main quiff with Papandreou has to do with two issues. Firstly that indeed he was elected on a different mandate than what he is implementing, and I voted for him, something that will not occur again in the near future. He should have called elections long before accepting any bailout package. Second, and perhaps more importantly, he should have negotiated tougher with our „partners” for a complete solution to the systemic problem that faces the Eurozone from the beginning. Perhaps the latter would have pushed Ms. Merkel to adopting political decisions quickly instead of wasting two years. Perhaps it would have pushed Europe into deeper economic integration, something that seems now inevitable in order to stabilise the currency and assure some light at the end of the tunnel.
The only thing that keeps me at ease during these times of economic turmoil is that real power remains in the hands of politicians. Silly as this may sound given the incompetence and perhaps confused leadership that surrounds us, the essence remains that people still run countries, governments still have the ultimate legitimate authority within their borders and the duty to “protect” citizens and hence to manipulate the beast known as the markets, also known as capitalism when I was young. As Nobel peace winning Greek Poet Giorgos Seferis put it “In our gradually shrinking world, everyone is in need of all the others. We must look for man wherever we can find him. When on his way to Thebes Oedipus encountered the Sphinx, his answer to its riddle was: ‘Man’. That simple word destroyed the monster. We have many monsters to destroy. Let us think of the answer of Oedipus.”
Yannis Parcharidis
(he is kindly sharing his views on Greece with Banco Corrido's readers. See his previous text - What happened to Greece? - here)
4.11.11
What happened to Greece? Most people still cannot understand, find unjust and simply do not believe
On 2 November, 2011 I was sitting in my office in Bucharest unable to work and following on various twitter accounts and some live news streams the latest news in Greece. My phone rang and my good friend Paulo asked me to write a small piece about what’s happening in Greece, so here we go.
The story of the day comes from the cabinet meetings and the negotiations within PASOK and with New Democracy Parties in order to move towards the next day, which is none other than the adoption of the “bailout package” offered to Greece – ie the trimming of the primary dept by 50%. This after the surprising announcement of a referendum where the people will actually be able to decide (?) their own fate. But I would like my first entry on the blog of my good friend to touch not on the news of the day, but the news of the decade. Forgive me for the bout of nostalgia, but here we go.
November 2004, Athens Greece. It’s the place to be. I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder to live here. The recent “dream Olympic games” gave birth to a complete transformation of the city. New highways, beautiful pedestrian walkways that unite the archeological centre for the first time, airports, bridges infrastructure that one could only dream of 10 or 15 years earlier became reality. Booming economic growth, something like 4% if I’m not mistaken, while the Eurozone average was less than 2. T-shirts with the Greek flag instead of the Union Jack were in style, from my flat with a great view of the Parthenon I noticed “winter tourists” who came for “weekend breaks” for the first time as far as I can remember, art houses and galleries were popping up everywhere, an air of creation and rebirth had overcome smog of the megalopolis. Heck, Greece had even won the Euro, beating Portugal twice at home :).
Five years later they told us that we’re about to go bankrupt, that we no longer have national integrity or even sovereignty for that matter regarding our internal policies. I’m trying to get my head around what’s been going on over the last two years. As long as I can remember myself, since the mid eighties, there have been voices in my country saying that we are on the verge of bankruptcy. Voices speaking about needed cuts in public services, wages and pensions. But what has happened over the last two years was a real surprise for most people in Greece. It was a shock that most people still cannot understand, find unjust and simply do not believe. The social fabric of the country is being torn apart, people are turning against one another, rioting and indiscriminately bagging all politicians and public servants in the same pile. This is not such a nice predicament, and in the next days I’ll provide my opinion on how we got here, who’s responsible and what we need to do to get back to the “golden age of modern Athens.”
Yannis Parcharidis
(I am proud that Yannis, a good friend and attentive observer of his own society, accepted the challenge of expressing here his views on the Greek crisis. Keep an eye on his writings.)
The story of the day comes from the cabinet meetings and the negotiations within PASOK and with New Democracy Parties in order to move towards the next day, which is none other than the adoption of the “bailout package” offered to Greece – ie the trimming of the primary dept by 50%. This after the surprising announcement of a referendum where the people will actually be able to decide (?) their own fate. But I would like my first entry on the blog of my good friend to touch not on the news of the day, but the news of the decade. Forgive me for the bout of nostalgia, but here we go.
November 2004, Athens Greece. It’s the place to be. I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder to live here. The recent “dream Olympic games” gave birth to a complete transformation of the city. New highways, beautiful pedestrian walkways that unite the archeological centre for the first time, airports, bridges infrastructure that one could only dream of 10 or 15 years earlier became reality. Booming economic growth, something like 4% if I’m not mistaken, while the Eurozone average was less than 2. T-shirts with the Greek flag instead of the Union Jack were in style, from my flat with a great view of the Parthenon I noticed “winter tourists” who came for “weekend breaks” for the first time as far as I can remember, art houses and galleries were popping up everywhere, an air of creation and rebirth had overcome smog of the megalopolis. Heck, Greece had even won the Euro, beating Portugal twice at home :).
Five years later they told us that we’re about to go bankrupt, that we no longer have national integrity or even sovereignty for that matter regarding our internal policies. I’m trying to get my head around what’s been going on over the last two years. As long as I can remember myself, since the mid eighties, there have been voices in my country saying that we are on the verge of bankruptcy. Voices speaking about needed cuts in public services, wages and pensions. But what has happened over the last two years was a real surprise for most people in Greece. It was a shock that most people still cannot understand, find unjust and simply do not believe. The social fabric of the country is being torn apart, people are turning against one another, rioting and indiscriminately bagging all politicians and public servants in the same pile. This is not such a nice predicament, and in the next days I’ll provide my opinion on how we got here, who’s responsible and what we need to do to get back to the “golden age of modern Athens.”
Yannis Parcharidis
(I am proud that Yannis, a good friend and attentive observer of his own society, accepted the challenge of expressing here his views on the Greek crisis. Keep an eye on his writings.)
12.4.10
A união monetária exige uma solidariedade entre os seus membros que os tratados não reconheceram
Os países do Euro aproveitaram o domingo para anunciar a garantia de um empréstimo à Grécia. A retórica é a politicamente correcta, pois não se trata de um subsídio mas de um empréstimo. A face grega também está salva, pois o Eurogrupo anunciou um apoio que a Grécia disse ainda não ter pedido. Mas o efeito prático é simples, os países vão fazer aquilo que proibiram nos tratados que o BCE fizesse, vão salvar a Grécia de uma crise (o famoso "bailout"). Há dias, Paul Krugmann chamou "euromess" à ambição da UE de fazer uma moeda sem lhe dar mecanismos de absorção de choques assimétricos. Este domingo, o Eurogrupo, sem o dizer, deu-lhe razão.
Em que é que este apoio difere de um mecanismo adequado à estabilidade do Euro? Em que devia ser um mecanismo automático em circunstâncias bem definidas. Não o sendo, a zona Euro intervirá casuisticamente onde os especuladores o exigirem. Neste caso, a Grécia ficou a saber que mais de 3/4 da sua necessidade de endividamento em 2010 estão garantidas pelos parceiros do Euro e pelo FMI. Nós todos ficámos a saber que, se outro membro da zona Euro precisar de semelhante apoio acabará por tê-lo, mais tade ou mais cedo. Todo o dinheiro que a Grécia perdeu nas últimas semanas a lutar contra os especuladores está perdido e todo o que os outros países membros que estejam em circunstâncias semelhantes perderem, perdido estará.
Mas a Europa reconheceu este domingo o que já se sabia: a união monetária exige uma solidariedade entre os seus membros que os tratados não reconheceram.
Em que é que este apoio difere de um mecanismo adequado à estabilidade do Euro? Em que devia ser um mecanismo automático em circunstâncias bem definidas. Não o sendo, a zona Euro intervirá casuisticamente onde os especuladores o exigirem. Neste caso, a Grécia ficou a saber que mais de 3/4 da sua necessidade de endividamento em 2010 estão garantidas pelos parceiros do Euro e pelo FMI. Nós todos ficámos a saber que, se outro membro da zona Euro precisar de semelhante apoio acabará por tê-lo, mais tade ou mais cedo. Todo o dinheiro que a Grécia perdeu nas últimas semanas a lutar contra os especuladores está perdido e todo o que os outros países membros que estejam em circunstâncias semelhantes perderem, perdido estará.
Mas a Europa reconheceu este domingo o que já se sabia: a união monetária exige uma solidariedade entre os seus membros que os tratados não reconheceram.
10.2.10
Lembram-se dos choques assimétricos e de o Euro não ter previsto mecanismos para os combater? E do risco sistémico?
Paul Krugmann pensa que a raíz da crise que a zona euro está a atravessar radica mais na Espanha que na Grécia, dada a dimensão desta última economia e que não nasceu da irresponsabilidade fiscal - que a Espanha não teve - mas dos choques assimétricos previsíveis da integração monetária sem integração fiscal e social. Para estes, não criámos mecanismos e os países que perdem competitividade ficam apanhados entre dois males: regressão social ou crise económica profunda.
Que fazer? Há quem pense que é só apertar o cinto nas zonas sob pressão até que passe. A proposta de Krugmann é bem mais radical:
I think Europe is now stuck with this creation, and needs to move as quickly as possible toward the kind of fiscal and labor market integration that would make it more workable.
Há por aí alguém que queira ouvir falar desta saída para a "euromess", dolorosa, mas estrutural? Se Krugmann fosse mais específico, julgo que os apoios no centro da Europa seriam ainda menores, mas o milagre das omeletes sem ovos está a sobrar para os espanhóis, os gregos e... os portugueses que queiram viver e trabalhar nos seus países.
Em dia de Orçamento de Estado vale a pena ter a noção precisa do que pode ser feito pelos portugueses e do que só pode mudar se acontecer à escala do euro, sem o que os sacrifícios de hoje se arriscam a ser meros prenúncios dos sacrifícios de amanhã.
Por coincidência, também hoje os Ministros das Finanças se "reunem" de urgência, por teleconferência, para tratar do assunto. Tal como aconteceu o ano passado com a banca, teme-se o efeito de contágio (o risco sistémico) dos problemas gregos a outras economias.
Ontem, num texto interessante e algo polémico, um economista escrevia sobre verdades e mitos em torno da crise da dívida pública um texto premonitório anunciando que a Grécia seria alvo de uma intervenção de resgate da situação de apuros. Escrevia ele:
Contagious debt defaults, along with bank failures, could lead to a double-dip recession in Europe, possibly affecting the US as well. If that were to happen, with the interest rate at the zero lower bound and fiscal policy not available any more, we could face a terribly bad situation. This is the most generous interpretation of why Eurozone governments will bail out Greece.
Hoje, os Ministros das Finanças estão exactamente a discutir esse "bailout" da dívida grega, aparentemente divididos entre os que admitem o recurso clássico ao FMI, reconhecidamente implacável; uma ajuda bilateral, algo humilhante, que poria o governo grego a responder a condições postas por outro "grande irmão" do euro, como a Alemanha; ou uma intervenção institucional ao nível europeu, que teria que ser tomada por unanimidade e abriria um precedente de assistência mútua que foi deliberadamente restringido drasticamente na criação do Euro.
Tal como os grandes bancos americanos, os Estados europeus são "too big to fail". A Grécia não o seria, nem Portugal, mas o receio de que arraste(m) consigo a Espanha e a Itália despertou a Europa.
A resposta para esta crise parece ser, pois, à europeia: princípios firmes, excepções largas, regras opacas, quadro regulador cada vez mais complexo. Funcionar? Tem funcionado, mas, voltando ao princípio, Krugmann tem razão, criámos uma euromess.
Que fazer? Há quem pense que é só apertar o cinto nas zonas sob pressão até que passe. A proposta de Krugmann é bem mais radical:
I think Europe is now stuck with this creation, and needs to move as quickly as possible toward the kind of fiscal and labor market integration that would make it more workable.
Há por aí alguém que queira ouvir falar desta saída para a "euromess", dolorosa, mas estrutural? Se Krugmann fosse mais específico, julgo que os apoios no centro da Europa seriam ainda menores, mas o milagre das omeletes sem ovos está a sobrar para os espanhóis, os gregos e... os portugueses que queiram viver e trabalhar nos seus países.
Em dia de Orçamento de Estado vale a pena ter a noção precisa do que pode ser feito pelos portugueses e do que só pode mudar se acontecer à escala do euro, sem o que os sacrifícios de hoje se arriscam a ser meros prenúncios dos sacrifícios de amanhã.
Por coincidência, também hoje os Ministros das Finanças se "reunem" de urgência, por teleconferência, para tratar do assunto. Tal como aconteceu o ano passado com a banca, teme-se o efeito de contágio (o risco sistémico) dos problemas gregos a outras economias.
Ontem, num texto interessante e algo polémico, um economista escrevia sobre verdades e mitos em torno da crise da dívida pública um texto premonitório anunciando que a Grécia seria alvo de uma intervenção de resgate da situação de apuros. Escrevia ele:
Contagious debt defaults, along with bank failures, could lead to a double-dip recession in Europe, possibly affecting the US as well. If that were to happen, with the interest rate at the zero lower bound and fiscal policy not available any more, we could face a terribly bad situation. This is the most generous interpretation of why Eurozone governments will bail out Greece.
Hoje, os Ministros das Finanças estão exactamente a discutir esse "bailout" da dívida grega, aparentemente divididos entre os que admitem o recurso clássico ao FMI, reconhecidamente implacável; uma ajuda bilateral, algo humilhante, que poria o governo grego a responder a condições postas por outro "grande irmão" do euro, como a Alemanha; ou uma intervenção institucional ao nível europeu, que teria que ser tomada por unanimidade e abriria um precedente de assistência mútua que foi deliberadamente restringido drasticamente na criação do Euro.
Tal como os grandes bancos americanos, os Estados europeus são "too big to fail". A Grécia não o seria, nem Portugal, mas o receio de que arraste(m) consigo a Espanha e a Itália despertou a Europa.
A resposta para esta crise parece ser, pois, à europeia: princípios firmes, excepções largas, regras opacas, quadro regulador cada vez mais complexo. Funcionar? Tem funcionado, mas, voltando ao princípio, Krugmann tem razão, criámos uma euromess.
Subscrever:
Mensagens (Atom)