April 18, 2024

One More Sign for a Turn to Growth in Europe

A survey of corporate purchasing managers by Markit Economics, a data and analysis firm in London, pointed to a broad — if tentative — recovery in the zone, the 17 European Union countries that use the euro.

Markit’s composite output index — which tracks sales, employment, inventory and prices — rose to 51.7 in August from 50.5 in July. The latest figure was the highest in 26 months. A number over 50 indicates growth.

Although not all the news was good — the survey indicated a contraction in French output during the month — the results were the second recent set of promising signals. Last week, official data showed that Europe broke out of recession in the second quarter of the year, helped by a rebound in household spending in Germany and France.

The data “provide further evidence that the currency union continued to expand in the third quarter, albeit at a pretty modest pace,” Jonathan Loynes, an economist in London with Capital Economics, wrote in a research note. “On past form, the index is now consistent with quarterly growth in euro zone G.D.P. of about 0.2 percent,” equivalent to an annualized gross domestic product rate of about 0.8 percent, he wrote.

The world economy could use a European economic renaissance, as investors have been unnerved by signs of a slowdown in emerging markets and anxiety about the timing and impact of the Federal Reserve’s monetary stimulus policies.

Still, there is little sign that the tepid recovery will be enough to address the main problems weighing on the euro zone: an unemployment rate at record highs and a crisis of confidence in public sector finances.

Germany, with the largest European economy, led the way again, with output expanding at its fastest pace since January and with manufacturing at a 25-month high, according to Markit data.

Carsten Brzeski, an economist in Brussels with ING Bank, said Germany was benefiting from strong domestic demand and improvements across the European economy. “It looks as if new growth hopes for the rest of the euro zone are stimulating German confidence,” he wrote in a note to clients, “which in turn could lead to higher German economic growth and could eventually become growth-supportive for the euro zone.”

Karl-Heinz Streibich, the chief executive of Software AG, based in Darmstadt, Germany, said Germany had benefited from its diverse pool of thousands of midsize manufacturers. “We are not totally dependent on the well-being of 10 or 15 companies,” he said by telephone.

Software AG has even been hiring people at its offices in Spain and Italy, albeit in small numbers, Mr. Streibich said. But the company, which had revenue last year of about 1 billion euros, or $1.3 billion, is gaining sales in those countries at the expense of rivals — not because the overall market is growing, he said.

“We don’t ride a growth wave of G.D.P.,” he said. “It is about taking market share from the competition.”

Data from French purchasing managers pointed to a contraction, with the index at 47.9 in August after 49.1 in July. That suggests that France’s second-quarter growth spurt of 0.5 percent, or about 2.0 percent at an annualized rate, might be a one-time event.

In most European countries, “There’s increasing confidence,” said Feike Sijbesma, chief executive and chairman of DSM, a Dutch specialty chemical company. “That’s good because it could help increase demand.”

DSM reported on Aug. 6 that sales rose 9 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, to 2.5 billion euros, as profit before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization rose 19 percent, to 345 million euros.

Mr. Sijbesma said that DSM’s performance was more reflective of its innovations, some of which helped its customers to save money, than of any rebound in Europe. “I’d be very cautious,” he added. “I don’t want to spoil the party, but I feel that in our business we’re doing much better in the rest of the world than in Europe.”

Jack Ewing contributed reporting from Frankfurt.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/23/business/global/euro-zone-economy-shows-further-signs-of-growth.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Alexis Tsipras, Greece Opposition Leader, Calls for Debt Renegotiation

The opposition leader, Alexis Tsipras, whose opposition to international bailouts propelled his party, Syriza, to win the second biggest bloc of parliamentary seats in the June 2012 elections, also said he did not believe Greece would be forced to withdraw from the group of 17 countries that use the euro currency. Greece’s heavy indebtedness has raised fears that the country could leave or be expelled from the so-called euro zone, a possibility that many economists regard as a threat to the euro’s survival.

“They say I am the most dangerous man in Europe,” Mr. Tsipras said in an interview with the Editorial Board of The New York Times. “I don’t know if you will come to this conclusion today or not. What I feel is dangerous is the policy of austerity in Europe. The Greek people have paid a heavy price. And it’s dangerous for the stability of the global and the European economy.”

Mr. Tsipras was visiting as part of a trip to the United States that has included meetings in Washington with officials of the International Monetary Fund and the Treasury Department and with audiences at the Brookings Institution and Columbia University, as well as with Greek-American groups.

The trip is part of a publicity campaign aimed at bolstering his credibility as a mainstream politician and countering what his aides call the fictional portrayals of him as a financial bomb-thrower in Greece’s mainstream press, which is controlled by the so-called oligarch families of privilege who own most of the wealth in the country and fear they have much to lose if Syriza ascends to power.

Given the fragility of the conservative-led coalition that took over after the June elections, any no-confidence vote in Parliament could lead to new elections that give Mr. Tsipras the latitude to form a government. Public opinion polls put Syriza’s popularity at 28 percent, about the same as the current coalition leader, the conservative New Democracy party.

Earlier this month Mr. Tsipras visited Germany, Europe’s most powerful economy, which has been the driving force behind the insistence that Greece must endure sacrifices and impose fiscal discipline in exchange for help on its debt burden. Mr. Tsipras has argued that the strategy has not only been an expensive failure but has increased Greece’s indebtedness relative to the size of its economy, where joblessness, wage reductions and cuts in pensions and benefits have stoked widespread anger.

After six years of recession in Greece, Mr. Tsiprias said, “we are witnessing a humanitarian crisis.”

The symptoms were on display this week in Athens, where striking subway workers, outraged over public-employee pay cuts, paralyzed a public transit system that carries 1 million riders a day. The government used an emergency decree and riot police to force the strikers back to work on Friday, but in a backlash other public transport unions went out on strike.

Mr. Tsipras said he would like to see a summit meeting that would result in an end to the austerity approach, which he said is needed to restart economic growth and avert a deeper economic malaise.

“We are suggesting an overall plan for a European solution,” he said. “A European conference on debt that would include all of the countries of the region facing a significant debt issue.”

He drew an analogy to the London Debt Agreement of 1953, in which postwar Germany’s debt was reduced by 50 percent and the repayment stretched out over 30 years, and he said that any summit agreement should include a clause that debt repayment depends on the rate of economic growth.

Mr. Tsipras said the German government, led by Chancellor Angela Merkel, has held the possibility of expulsion from the euro zone over Greece as leverage for enforcing its austerity solution, but that in his view neither Germany nor its supporters want to see Greece exit the euro.

“The constant threats, that they will kick us out of the euro zone, is a strategy with no foundation,” he said. “It’s just a way to blackmail us, a false way to blackmail us.” The euro zone, he said, “is like a chain with 17 links — if you break one link the chain falls apart.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/26/world/europe/alexis-tsipras-greece-opposition-leader-calls-for-debt-renegotiation.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

European Central Bank Eases Euro Crisis a Bit

The surprisingly successful auctions owe little to improving economic data around the region. On the contrary, many of the countries that use the euro as their currency appear to be confronting a renewed recession, and pessimism about their growth prospects remains abundant. Just last week, Standard Poor’s stripped France of its coveted AAA rating for the first time in recent history and downgraded eight others.

Instead, most of the credit seems to go to the European Central Bank, which in late December under its new president, Mario Draghi, quietly began providing emergency loans to European banks — hundreds of billions of dollars of almost interest-free capital that the banks have used to come to the rescue of their national governments.

The central bank, based in Frankfurt, used typically understated and technical language to describe its actions, but it appears to have done what its leadership said repeatedly throughout 2011 that it would not do: namely, flood the financial markets with euros in a Hail Mary attempt to make sure that the region’s sovereign debt crisis does not lead to a major financial shock.

Though on a smaller scale and in a subtler manner, it has in many ways taken a page from the United States Federal Reserve’s playbook for the 2008 financial crisis, which has been roundly criticized in Europe as a reckless bailout that risks setting off uncontrolled inflation. And, at least for now, the effort has worked. Spain’s 10-year bonds now carry interest rates that hover around 5.5 percent, compared with 7 percent and higher in November, and Italy’s five-year bonds are approaching 5 percent, down from nearly 8 percent at their peak.

There have been moments before when European leaders declared the crisis contained, only to see it return with renewed fury. But the central bank’s incentives, combined with a push from the private banks’ home governments, seem to have convinced investors that this time may be different, and financial markets in Asia, Europe and the United States have responded with strong gains this year.

Fears of a bank collapse — the so-called Lehman Brothers moment, when one financial institution’s failure threatens the stability of the entire system — have subsided. And Greece appears to be closer to a deal with its creditors to pare back its debt obligations rather than a messy, disorderly default that could plunge the financial system back into chaos.

That encouraging situation seemed highly unlikely as recently as early December, when panic over the European debt crisis was reaching a peak, just before a European Union summit meeting in Brussels. While national leaders postured and pursued their parochial interests, Mr. Draghi, told reporters at the central bank’s headquarters that he would conduct “two longer-term refinancing operations” (in plain English, emergency funding) for cash-starved banks for three years instead of one year.

The European economy was on the brink, and threatening to take the rest of the world with it, and Europe’s new top central banker did not seem to get it. “Why is it so impossible for the E.C.B. to act like the other central banks, like the Federal Reserve System or the Bank of England?” a reporter asked him. “Why do you not act more directly to help European countries by buying up the debt on a massive scale?”

Mr. Draghi said he was bound by the European treaty, which “embodies the best tradition of the Deutsche Bundesbank,” the German central bank, code for strict inflation-fighting and the furthest thing from a wholesale emergency bailout.

European stocks fell. Financial experts declared that Mr. Draghi had disappointed. The world demanded a bazooka, but he had shown up with a water pistol, or so it seemed.

Less than two weeks later, on Dec. 21, the bank announced the results of its technical maneuver: the banks had taken $630 billion as part of the program. In the weeks that followed, the banks appear to have used a sizable share of the cash to buy the European bonds so desperately in need of customers. It was as if the European Central Bank had injected lenders with steroids, then asked them to do the heavy lifting. The strategy appears to be paying off. Even in the face of recession warnings and the agency’s downgrades, the European debt market keeps improving.

Financial experts say the central bank’s intervention seems to have catalyzed a virtuous circle: as new governments come in and promise to deliver spending cuts, tax increases and balanced budgets, once gun-shy banks have an added incentive to tap new financing from the central bank and jump back into bond markets that they were running from just a few months ago.

The question now is whether the E.C.B.’s action merely delayed the inevitable reckoning for the euro zone’s weakest members or whether falling interest rates and improved growth will become entrenched, bringing the critical phase of the Continent’s debt crisis to a close.

“I think that they have mastered it to the extent that this isn’t going to get a whole lot worse,” said Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, a research fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. “We do have in my opinion fairly credible signs of stabilization.”

Jack Ewing contributed reporting from Frankfurt, Landon Thomas Jr. from London, and Steven Erlanger from Paris.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/21/world/european-central-bank-eases-euro-crisis-a-bit.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Debt Crisis Bring Former Foes — Poland and Germany — Closer Than Ever

For all the damage wrought by the sovereign debt crisis in Europe, it has brought even greater harmony to the fraught and often bloody historical relationship between Poland and Germany. In the midst of discord, the former foes find themselves closer than ever, perhaps paving the way to a new axis of Paris, Berlin and Warsaw that could eventually form the core of a more deeply integrated Europe.

Poland is a crucial supporting player in the euro drama that is reaching a crossroads with the summit meeting Thursday and Friday in Brussels. It represents a scarce commodity — a growing economy with enthusiasm for European integration — and even plans to eventually join the euro zone.

“There is no Plan B for Poland other than Europe: stronger Europe, more active Europe, economically but also politically,” said Eugeniusz Smolar, a foreign policy expert at the Polish Institute of International Affairs in Warsaw.

Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, supports Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany in her push for full treaty changes to mandate tighter budget rules and oversight, rather than a deal between the countries that use the euro. And in the wheeling and dealing behind the scenes to reach agreement in Brussels, Poland has several advantages.

It has close ties to former Soviet bloc countries as well as northern European countries like Sweden that do not use the euro. Poland occupies a special place as the leader among the nations that are not in the euro zone but have not officially opted out, and it has voluntarily joined the Euro Plus Pact to improve fiscal strength and competitiveness. It even stands to displace Britain’s waning influence, depending on how events turn.

Poland’s enthusiastic support for European integration stands in stark contrast to Britain’s constant demands for exceptions, carve-outs and caveats.

And Poland’s suffering at German and Russian hands, its history of invasion, partition and occupation, puts Polish leaders in a unique position to calm rising concerns of German dominance within Europe.

In an address last week in Berlin, Poland’s foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, said that the greatest threat to Poland’s security was not Russian missiles or the Taliban and that “it’s certainly not German tanks.” Instead, Mr. Sikorski said, it was the collapse of the euro zone that offered the paramount danger to his country, and he said he demanded that Germany “as Europe’s indispensible nation” take responsibility and lead.

“I will probably be the first Polish foreign minister in history to say so, but here it is,” Mr. Sikorski said, in a line that has been quoted time and again since, in a speech that has government and foreign policy circles in Berlin still buzzing. “I fear German power less than I am beginning to fear German inactivity.”

Many Polish politicians said that Mr. Sikorski went too far in calling for a federal Europe, offering to give up their hard-won sovereignty. And few are clamoring to join the euro quickly, preferring to wait until some resolution to the present crisis has been found.

The greater concern among Poles is being left behind as countries integrate their economies more deeply. Mr. Tusk will be pushing for an agreement that involves all 27 members of the European Union, said Bartek Nowak, executive director of the Center for International Relations in Warsaw. Even if Germany and France lead the way to an agreement among the 17 European Union countries that use the euro, Poland may choose to participate.

“If the 17 decide to improve their economic governance, I think Poland will join voluntarily because Poland wants to join the euro zone,” Mr. Nowak said.

A senior German official told reporters in Berlin on Wednesday that Germany and France would move ahead with the 17 members of the euro zone rather than the 27 members of the European Union, if necessary, to enact reforms that would make fiscal discipline mandatory. But the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, singled out Poland as an example of a country that had not yet adopted the euro but would be able to take part in the new system.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/09/world/europe/debt-crisis-bring-former-foes-poland-and-germany-closer-than-ever.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Slovakia Deal Revives Euro Rescue Fund Hopes

The changes to the fund need to be approved in all 17 European Union countries that use the euro. Slovakia, a small, former-Communist country of 5.5 million, is the only holdout.

The fall of the coalition government was the price it paid for tying the fund changes to its own survival in a confidence vote in Parliament. Parties in the departing coalition reached an accord on Wednesday with Robert Fico’s opposition party, Smer, allowing the vote to pass through Parliament in exchange for early elections. “There is an agreement,” said a spokesman for Mr. Fico’s party, Erik Tomas. “Smer agrees to support the financial mechanism and the coalition agrees to elections on March 10.”

For some, the episode has illustrated the contrast between Europe’s slow, cumbersome decision making and the ruthless speed of the financial markets. Ultimately, the effort to stave off the debt crisis was almost hijacked by internal political maneuvering in one of the euro zone’s smallest economies.

Before the agreement was reached with Smer, the European Union’s most senior officials appealed to Slovak politicians to stop their squabbling.

“We call upon all parties in the Slovak Parliament to rise above the positioning of short-term politics, and seize the next occasion to ensure a swift adoption of the new agreement,” said a joint statement from José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, and Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council. Slovakia’s new vote to approve changes to the rescue fund known as the European Financial Stability Facility is expected Thursday or Friday.

“The agreement makes it possible that either tomorrow night or at the latest Friday morning the fund and the laws tied to it will be approved,” Mr. Fico said, Reuters reported. The changes to the bailout fund not only expand it but also give it new powers to help strengthen Europe’s vulnerable banks. “If we are held hostage to every parochial problem, then our efficiency is severely impaired,” said one European diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the issue.

The biggest winner is Mr. Fico, a leftist former prime minister, who already had the largest bloc in the Parliament and watched as the fragile four-party coalition keeping him out of power fell upon itself. Opinion surveys show him in the lead if new elections are held. The government crisis was doubly successful for Mr. Fico, breaking the coalition while allowing him to play the role of rescuer and power broker.

Now that it has the support of Mr. Fico’s party, the measure should pass easily.

While on the one hand many Slovaks found the prospect of bailing out richer fellow euro zone members inconceivable, others savored Slovakia’s seat in the inner circle of Europe, and were dismayed over the spectacle of holding up the bailout.

Stephen Castle reported from Brussels, and Nicholas Kulish from Berlin.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/world/europe/slovak-deal-revives-hope-for-euro-rescue-fund.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Germany Approves Euro Bailout Plan; Slovakia Vote Awaits

By passing the measure, Germany promised to increase its share of the loan guarantees to 211 billion euros, or about $287 billion, from 123 billion euros, as agreed by national leaders in Brussels back in July. Under the euro zone’s tortuous procedures, however, all 17 European Union countries that use the euro must approve the agreement, a process that has revealed ever more fissures, layers of decision-making and political complexity that add up to a worrisome inability to react quickly and decisively to upheaval in fast-moving financial markets.

“The markets see that Europe cannot decide anything quickly, and uncertainty is always an inducement to speculation,” said Gustav Horn, director of the Macroeconomic Policy Institute in Düsseldorf, Germany.

The process also leaves the European Union potentially hostage to its smaller members. A significant hurdle was overcome when Finland passed the bailout fund measure on Wednesday despite domestic objections and an unresolved dispute over its demand for collateral from Greece. (Estonia and Cyprus approved the plan on Thursday, and a vote in Austria is expected on Friday.)

Similar fears have been voiced about Slovakia, an impoverished nation from the former Communist bloc whose people suffered mightily to adopt the euro and have little stomach for bailing out richer countries like Greece. Of the handful of countries left to approve the measure, it is the only remaining wild card. Some leading Slovak politicians have been highly critical of the agreement, and the governing coalition itself is divided about supporting the fund.

The speaker of Parliament in Slovakia, Richard Sulik, has said he will do whatever he can to stop the bailout fund from coming to a vote, even as advocates have desperately sought a compromise.

But the combined pressure of the euro zone members will probably be more than Mr. Sulik and other opponents can bear. A spokeswoman for Parliament, Beata Skyvova, said that the speaker and the prime minister met on Thursday, but that no deal had been announced.

Analysts have already said that the fund, even if it passes in all 17 countries, will probably be too small to defend against speculative attacks on deeply indebted European nations. Nevertheless, although the German vote perhaps offered nothing more than momentary relief, it was the crucial step to move the fight forward to the next stage.

“Without Germany’s participation, nothing would have been possible,” Mr. Horn said. “This project would have been dead.”

For the beleaguered German leader, Chancellor Angela Merkel, Thursday’s vote represented a sorely needed victory. Mrs. Merkel has been sharply criticized for her opposition to economic stimulus and disparaged over her slow reaction to the crisis. Under her stewardship, the project of European integration seems to move forward only when forced by circumstances and specifically by financial markets. Yet step by tentative step, move forward it has.

In the historic Reichstag building, graffiti from Red Army soldiers who conquered the capital of Nazi Germany still adorn the walls. Outside the Reichstag, the home of the German Parliament, a protester held a sign reading “Europe Finance Suicide Fund,” a play on the name of the bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility.

“The chancellor’s path is extremely contentious, with the public plainly opposed because it is unclear what limit there is to how far Germany has to jump in to cover Greece’s debt,” said Werner J. Patzelt, a political scientist at Technical University in Dresden.

The German public is staunchly against paying the debts of other Europeans, stereotyped in the news media here as spendthrifts compared with the virtuously frugal Germans. But as Europe’s largest economy, Germany is the only nation with the fiscal wherewithal to pull fellow countries in the euro zone out of trouble.

Government statistics on Thursday showed that even as economic growth has stalled, unemployment has continued to fall in Germany, defying the trend that has pushed joblessness higher across Europe, particularly in recession-stricken economies like Greece and Spain. The Federal Labor Agency reported that the unemployment rate dropped to 6.6 percent in September from 7 percent in August.

Germany continues to preach savings over stimulus to contain the debt crisis, withstanding sustained pressure from American policy makers and opting for the path of fiscal discipline supported by the Netherlands and Finland.

“We here in Germany are now on the right path, and the rest of Europe has recognized that,” said Joachim Pfeiffer, a member of Parliament from Mrs. Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union. “Just a year ago we were still fiercely criticized, including by the Americans. Today, Germany is the model for Europe.”

Stefan Pauly contributed reporting.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=c823877cfeb7d472f72080cf94fd5d74

Speculators Find Value in Lowly Greek Bonds

After a number of investors struck gold by betting against French banks, many have turned their attention to the hot yet risky euro zone trade of the moment: buying Greek government bonds that traders say are changing hands for as little as 36 cents for each euro of face value.

The investors hope to book a fat profit on the expectation that the European Union and the International Monetary Fund will once again bail out Greece, fearing a global financial disaster if they do not.

Under the deal Greece struck in July with its banks as part of Europe’s rescue plan, a substantial portion of its existing bonds are scheduled to be swapped into new longer-term securities that could be valued at more than 70 cents to the euro. If the deal closes in late October — assuming the latest bailout system is ratified by the parliaments of the 17 European Union countries that use the euro — those who bought the bonds recently at distressed prices might in some cases come close to doubling their money.

But what is good for hedge funds is not necessarily good for Greece.

The popularity of this trade is just the latest sign that the carefully constructed debt swap agreed to by Greece and its private sector creditors may be a much sweeter deal for investors than it is for taxpayers.

“Everyone knows this was a good deal for the banks,” said Otmar Issing, a top German economist who served on the executive board of the European Central Bank. “It will not help Greece at all.”

According to a person with direct knowledge of the debt swap, about 30 percent of the investors who are expected to participate in the exchange bought their bonds after July 21. They are not the original debt holders — mostly large European banks — but more speculative investors looking to cash in on the steep fall in Greek bond prices.

The debt swap is expected to cover about 135 billion euros ($183 billion) in existing bonds, suggesting that various hedge funds and other investors have bought as much as 40 billion euros worth of Greek debt since July 21.

The behind-the-scenes deal-making may be obscure but it helps explain why Chancellor Angela Merkel is having such a hard time persuading crucial German lawmakers to vote for the Greek bailout on Thursday.

With people like Mr. Issing arguing that banks and other creditors have not been forced to contribute a larger share of Europe’s ever-rising bailout bill, it’s no surprise that politicians are worried about a harsh public reaction to the bailout. Mr. Issing contends that the owners of Greece’s debt should be required to take a roughly 50 percent write-down on their holdings as part of an “orderly” default that would reduce Greece’s overall debt burden, allowing it to meet its obligations without further borrowing.

Under the current deal, Greece’s debt burden would be reduced to 122 percent of gross domestic product by 2015 — still leaving Greece with the highest debt load in Europe. Speaking Tuesday at a conference in Berlin that discussed the future of the euro zone, Mr. Issing shook his head in frustration, pointing out that in light of the recent collapse in Greek bond prices, some banks might even be able to book a loss that is significantly less than the advertised 21 percent.

While not a member of the government, Mr. Issing is in many ways the leading voice of Germany’s economic establishment.

But supporters of the Greek bailout say it is too late to change the terms and that any effort to alter the equation between Athens and its creditors could scuttle the whole carefully constructed deal. They also argue that many European banks holding Greek debt, particularly those based in Greece itself, are too thinly capitalized to absorb any larger losses now.

Analysts say that further debt write-offs are likely to be delayed well into next year, after Europe has put in place a new financing system that could bolster the region’s banks.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=fe9aa70bec7dcb3575b44374c83d99bc