Eurocalm before the Eurostorm

Investment Notes

That the Eurozone ends 2012 in an apparently stable condition is mainly down to the work of two people. The first is Mario Draghi with his promise of potentially unlimited intervention in sovereign bond markets. The second is Angela Merkel’s with her summer policy decision that forcing Greece from the Eurozone would be more damaging than keeping it in.

Mrs Merkel over-ruled the Bundesbank on both of these issues, and her steady approach to crisis management leaves her as one of the most popular European leaders within her own party and country.  She has now clearly grasped that, for the Eurozone to survive in the long term, it is necessary to have a much deeper integration of Eurozone countries, which extends ultimately to national government finances, common banking supervision and control, and joint liability for debt. In short banking, fiscal and political union is required to complete the economic and monetary union.  These are not particularly popular positions to adopt, either with the German people or with the other European nations, but they are the logical steps required to ensure the long term existence of the single currency. 

She understands that for this to happen, Germany will have to dip into its pockets and provide substantial assistance to the poorer countries in the transition. However, she has not been as explicit with the German people that the financial costs of such policies to them will be very great. The German people are not in favour of lending more money in bailouts to their Southern neighbours, and they are not in favour of accepting losses on previous bailout monies already granted. Next autumn there is a Federal election in Germany in which Mrs Merkel would like to be re-elected as Chancellor.  So ideally, from her perspective, there would not be any more Eurozone bailouts before the German elections.

The recent agreement on the next tranche of Greek aid was farcical.  Everyone (Greece, the IMF, the EU and the ECB) is pretending that Greece is not insolvent, merely illiquid and that (based on optimistic assumptions) all will be well a decade from now. Significantly, Germany has agreed that should Greece be doing well by 2015 in delivering on its budget deficit targets, then they would be prepared to forgive some of their debt.  The truth is that if Greece does not achieve its targets the Germans will be forced to forgive the debt because it cannot be repaid.  The point though is that any debt forgiveness happens after the German elections, when European priorities may once again be more important than domestic German ones.

Southern Europe is now very close to the limits of its tolerance for austerity. The Greek, Spanish and Portugese governments have all told their people that they are on the last round of austerity measures.  With youth unemployment close to 50% in these countries, anti-euro, anti-austerity political ideas are beginning to gain ground.  German leaders still consistently state that austerity in these economies will be necessary if further bailout funds are to be provided, and this rhetoric will not be watered down ahead of the elections.

The other major Eurozone election due by April 2013 is in Italy.  Mr Berlusconi’s withdrawal of support for the technocratic Monti government and his announcement that he will fight the elections on an anti-austerity, anti-German platform are not helpful for the euro. However, it is the honest debate to be having.

The Eurozone begins 2013 in recession, and fiscal policy is being tightened further, except in Germany.  A weak European economy will mean larger budget deficits than planned, and more pressure from the southern economies for bailouts.  This will produce more demands for austerity from the northern economies, with the rapidly fading ability to deliver either.

The stability of current financial markets in the Eurozone will not survive very long into 2013 without a dramatic improvement in economic growth, which is very hard to envisage.  Ultimately, the only solution for the weaker economies is inflation. This can come about either through leaving the single currency or through overturning the Germanic culture, which controls Eurozone economic policy. The former is the more likely solution, and the investment conclusion is to remain very wary of all euro-denominated investments until a more sustainable monetary system is in place in Europe.