German lawmakers approved an expansion of the euro area rescue fund’s firepower, freeing the way for European officials to focus on what next steps may be needed to stem the debt crisis.
The lower house of parliament passed the measure with 523 votes in favour and 85 against, granting the fund powers to buy bonds in secondary markets, enable bank recapitalisations and offer precautionary credit lines. It raises Germany’s guarantees to euro 211 billion ($287 billion) from euro123 billion. The main opposition Social Democrats and Greens said before on Thursday’s session in Berlin that they’d vote with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government, assuring passage.
The bill’s passage by Europe’s biggest economy allows euro area officials to weigh further measures to bolster Greece and stem investor concern that helped end the biggest three-day rally in 16 months for European stocks. Options include seeking further writedowns on Greek sovereign bonds, adding yet more firepower to the rescue fund and a plan to protect banks.
Beefing up the fund bolsters defenses against the crisis, setting the stage for German policy makers to focus on Greece’s second bailout, said Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Joh Berenberg Gossler & Co in London. That “may morph into a debate about an orderly Greek default later this year, with a haircut on Greek debt, an immediate recapitalisation of Greek banks, European guarantees for restructured Greek debt and conditional fiscal support” for Greece, he said.
RECESSION RISK
Faced with German voter dismay at bailouts, coalition members wary of granting more aid threatened to rebel against the government line. The risk of defeat receded as international concern grew that default by Greece would harm the euro region’s core countries and tip the global economy back into recession.
“The German parliament is voting for too little, too late,” Fredrik Erixon, head of the European Centre for International Political Economy in Brussels, said by phone before the ballot. “Merkel can’t possibly believe this is the final point in a rescue package that will calm global markets and lead us out of the crisis.”
Additional measures now in play include further leveraging the rescue fund, known as the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF); bringing forward the start of its permanent successor by a year or more; reopening the second Greek rescue agreed in July to increase the financial industry’s contribution; and a safety net for Europe’s banks if default becomes inevitable.
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Merkel, head of Europe’s largest economy and the biggest country contributor to bailouts for Greece, Ireland and Portugal, spent weeks cajoling dissenters in her coalition to back the July 21 accord by euro area leaders to expand the fund.
COALITION DISSENTERS
Provisions inserted into the bill to satisfy Germany’s constitutional court and potential rebels will allow lawmakers to vote on all new aid requests from the euro 440 billion fund. Leaders of the Free Democratic Party, Merkel’s junior coalition ally that has flirted with an anti-bailout stance, said the bill would pass on the strength of the coalition’s majority.
Merkel’s coalition has 330 seats in the 620-member lower house. With a simple majority of 311 required to pass the bill, she can afford 19 dissenters before depending on opposition votes to win approval. The full breakdown of the vote will be announced later on Thursday.
Expanding the fund requires approval in all 17 euro countries. Nine have authorised the changes, including France, Italy, Spain and Finland, where parliament voted yesterday. Estonia also votes on Thursday and Austria holds its ballot tomorrow, when Germany’s upper house of parliament will debate the fund.
OBAMA’S CALL
Nearly two years into the debt crisis centred on Greece, the US is urging European governments to go further and show more urgency. Europeans haven’t responded “as effectively as they needed to,” President Barack Obama said during a roundtable discussion at the White House yesterday.
Europeans “are aware of our responsibility,” German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Deutschlandfunk radio on Thursday. “We have to take as many precautions as we can. We must ensure that Europe doesn’t become the starting point of a new, big financial and economic crisis in the world.”
If the rescue fund must be enhanced further, it will be done in the “most efficient way,” Schaeuble said on September 27. He said that he had also asked all 17 euro states to come up with “backstop plans” to shield banks if the crisis worsens. The plans are to be outlined at the next euro-area finance ministers’ meeting on October 3, when they are due to decide whether to release the next aid payment for Greece.
Greece’s lack of competitiveness means “insolvency on its own won’t solve the root problem,” Frank Schaeffler, an FDP lawmaker who said he planned to vote against the bill, said in an interview yesterday. He called for Greece to leave the euro region because rescue packages “won’t work.”
“I don’t believe the domino effect we hear about will happen,” he said. “Investors will learn the bitter lesson that their losses can’t be socialised by the taxpayer.”