TOP ECONOMISTS WARN GERMANY THAT EMU CRISIS AS DANGEROUS AS EVER / THE TELEGRAPH

Top economists warn Germany that EMU crisis as dangerous as ever

Council on Foreign Relations compares Germany's hardline stance with US policy towards Britain at the end of the Second World War

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, in Berlin

6:55PM BST 09 Apr 2014
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Professor Michael Burda, from Berlin's Humbolt University, said the eurozone's core problem is Germany's current account surplus  Photo: AP

The eurozone debt crisis is deepening and threatens to re-erupt on a larger scale when the liquidity cycle turns, a leading panel of economists warned in a clash of views with German officials in Berlin.

"Debts above 130pc of GDP for Italy and 170pc for Greece are a recipe for disaster once we go into the next downturn," said Professor Charles Wyplosz, from Geneva University.

"Today's politicians believe the crisis is over and don't want to hear any more about it, but they have not tackled the core issues of fiscal union and public debt," he said, speaking at Euromoney's annual Germany conference.

Ludger Schuknecht, director-general of the German finance ministry, insisted that the debt-stricken states of the eurozone are well on the way to recovery, ending their EU-IMF rescue programmes successfully one by one. There is no need for any major shift in policy. "The strategy has been right. We need to bring down debt and this is now consensus," he said.

Mr Schuknecht, the chief architect of the EMU anti-crisis regime, said Europe's banking union may need tweaking but nothing more. "There are some loose ends. These will be tied in a timely manner," he said.

This optimism is sharply at odds with the view of almost every foreign-based economist attending the event. Charles Dallara, former head of the International Instititute for Finance and chief negotiator for global banks in Greece's debt-restructuring, said little has be done to put the eurozone on a viable footing, even if sovereign bond yields in southern Europe have fallen to record lows.

"We should not be distracted by what is happening in financial markets, and look at the underlying economies in Italy and Spain. The pace of recovery is so slow and painful that is going to be challenging for democracies," he said.

"There has been too much belt-tightening and not enough structural reform. Credit is continuing to shrink in the heart of the eurozone. What is needed is a collective effort across the entirety of the eurozone to boost confidence, with a new package of fiscal measures and an end to austerity. Imagine how powerful that would be," he said.

Benn Steil, from the Council on Foreign Relations, said Germany's refusal to allow the eurozone rescue fund (ESM) to recapitalise banks directly means there will be no back-stop in place to prevent problems spinning out of control if European banks fail stress tests later this year, as expected.

This ignores the key lesson of the US stress tests, where government capital lay in reserve to ensure the stability of the system. "There is the potential for a fresh crisis if they announce the stress tests without the ESM being able to recapitalise banks," he said.

While Mr Steil did not cite specific countries, there are concerns that some Irish, Portuguese, Spanish and Italian lenders may fail tests as they grapple with a backlog of non-performing loans.

"Germany and the creditor states are going to have to decide whether they will accept fiscal transfers or whether it is best to wind down the project and let the eurozone unravel," he said.

Mr Steil compared Germany's hardline stance with US policy towards Britain at the end of the Second World War, when a prostrate UK emerged with the world's biggest debts - though US policy later changed. "We are hearing the same language as in the 1940s. The crisis was all the fault of lax policies in the debtor countries. It was precisely the way the US spoke when it was a creditor," he said.

Mr Steil warned that the achievement of primary budget surpluses in Italy and Greece may prove a Pyrrhic Victory since history shows that heavily-indebted countries are most likely to default once they have crossed this line and can meet day-to-day costs from tax revenue. "This is a good time for Greece to default," he said.

Professor Michael Burda, from Berlin's Humbolt University, said the eurozone's core problem is Germany's current account surplus - more than 6pc of GDP - and flat wages for a decade. "Germany has to become less competitive or the eurozone is not going to survive. 

You can't just save forever. It's mercantilism and we don't do that kind of thing anymore. All Germany has to do is to make its people happier by raising their wages," he said.