13 November 2012

Sebastian Mallaby: Europe is messing up Merkel's union

Last month, Athens; next week, Lisbon: by dint of austerity tourism, Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel is announcing her near-term plan for the euro, writes Mallaby in his FT column.

So long as governments in the periphery are at least attempting to abide by the centre’s conditions, the European Central Bank will prevent cliff dwellers from toppling into the abyss. There will be drama, of course; witness the brinkmanship on Greece. But neither sovereign bankruptcy nor banking bust will be allowed to trigger a crack-up.

The chancellor’s uneasy peace is intended to free Europe to focus on its longer-term challenge: how to reform the monetary union so that it is sound in the future. By all appearances, Ms Merkel dominates this design process. Her principle, that support for the periphery must be conditional upon control from the centre, is enshrined in both the new fiscal compact and the drive towards centralised bank supervision. In an ironic echo of the euro’s founding, however, the chancellor may be about to allow an imprudent concession, poisoning the monetary union when the next crisis hits.

When the euro was created, the Germans thought they were getting an ECB in the image of the Bundesbank. In one sense this was true: the ECB has outdone the Bundesbank in holding down German inflation. But in terms of governance, the Germans were kidding themselves. The ECB’s governing council works on a one member, one vote system. Only two out of 23 members are German. On paper, at least, the president of the Bundesbank is no more powerful than the governor of the Bank of Cyprus or the Bank of Malta.

In ordinary times, this governance structure worked fine. Germans got the price stability they wanted, along with a gratifying feeling of transcending primitive national loyalties. But in extraordinary times, Germans who revere the Bundesbank have been shocked. As the crisis has forced the ECB to stretch its mandate, it has embraced a policy of bailouts that the Bundesbank detests. The fact that the ECB’s policy is right does not alter the reality that many Germans hate it.

This is a recipe for trouble.

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