スペイン議会下院で2013年2月12日に欧州中央銀行総裁のマリオ=ドラギが演説
COLUMNA
Esperando a Draghi
Las dos personas más poderosas de España son Angela Merkel y el presidente del BCE
José Ignacio Torreblanca 7 FEB 2013 - 18:38 CET
COLUMN
Waiting for Draghi
The two most powerful people in Spain are Angela Merkel and ECB President
José Ignacio Torreblanca 7 FEB 2013 - 18:38 CET
Appear at the 12th Congress of Deputies Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank (ECB). It does so voluntarily and with the aim of publicizing their institution and better explain the measures it has been taking in recent months. Although the gesture is honored, the format of the hearing, without records, stenographers, or recordings, raises many questions from the point of view of democracy. Why?
Sure that at this stage of the crisis and have realized that the two most powerful people in Spain are Angela Merkel and Mario Draghi. The first is in his hand the political solutions, the second economic solutions. In the hands of the first is the extent, timing and depth of the proposed union bank, as necessary to set a true economic union, so are the Eurobonds or other debt pooling mechanism, essential for us to go to a real fiscal union , or steps towards genuine political union.
In the hands of the latter are the interest rates, crucial in determining consumer incentives and investment in the whole euro area, but also the exchange rate, the European banking system liquidity and risk premiums for the debts of the states of Eurozone. This may seem somewhat abstract, has very direct implications on people's lives: the ECB's decisions can fail or succeed a business initiative, create or destroy jobs, feed or deflating a credit bubble. We talk about your company, your job or your mortgage.
What happens when someone with so much power is wrong? Or worse, when it overflows its mandate and deviates from its competition? It is not a theoretical question. The ECB is attributed three errors directly related to this crisis. The first, held for a decade that interest rates remain appropriate to encourage French and German economies were too low for Spain and the rest of the South, which encouraged the housing bubble whose bursting has brought us this far. The second and third mistake by raising interest rates in July 2008 and April 2011, fearing inflation pressures just when the European economy needed the exact opposite.
Even more serious is the charge of having overflowed its mandate in August 2011 forced the Spanish and Italian Governments to adopt major reforms as a condition to relieve pressure on market risk premiums of these two countries. The ECB and the governments in question have always denied the existence of the "secret letter" from Trichet, but ended up back in the hands of the Corriere della Sera, which published it, while on the request of a Spanish citizen, the Ombudsman could go to Frankfurt and verify its existence. The letter, co-signed by Draghi, the ECB stands light years ahead of its mandate to control inflation and provide the "transmission of monetary policy." "To facilitate the dismissal, reduce salaries of civil servants, privatize public services, decentralize collective bargaining, liberalizing professional services, reduce pensions and reduce the size of the public sector," advises the ECB in its letter of 5 August 2011 to Berlusconi and (presumably) to Zapatero. Furthermore, the ECB recommends that these measures be taken urgently by executive order in August, bypassing parliamentary negotiation. As a finishing touch, the ECB states consider "appropriate" constitutional reform to strengthen the rules on deficit control. All of a political program and a legislative agenda with a disguised conditionality agreement: you are free to ignore me, I am free to buy their debt though, as we both know, if I ignore his government will fall.
The rest is known. A few days later, the ECB intervenes massively in the markets to ease the pressure on Spanish and Italian debt. On the Spanish side, Zapatero fulfilled its part and implements the reforms in question, including a controversial reform of the Constitution ready in the month of August to add control deficits (Article 135). Berlusconi, cheater by nature, escape attempts of pressure once the worst is in the markets, but in November 2011 pushed by market falls.
So, gentlemen, when the 12th Draghi talk to do not think that is a central banker with a technical mandate. Nor is it an evil. On the contrary, their unorthodox measures saved Spain from bankruptcy in 2011 and the euro itself of its collapse in 2012. It's just his replacement as a legislator. So, as you are now unable to ordinary citizens, ask freely.
Follow me on @ jitorreblanca and blog elpais.com Café Steiner.
Hoping for
スペイン議会下院で2013年2月12日に欧州中央銀行総裁のマリオ=ドラギが演説
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