Jeffry Frieden, (2018), “A plan to save the euro”, VoxEU, 23 Μαΐου
Even in the most heavily affected debtor nations, support for monetary union never fell below 50% of the population, and was typically closer to 70%. However, Europeans have little faith in the willingness or ability of existing political leaders to manage it fairly and efficiently: debtor-country citizens’ confidence in the institutions of the EU dropped from over 70% before the crisis to barely 20% during it (e.g. Foster and Frieden 2017, Frieden 2016).
As in all debt crises, a major axis of conflict has been between debtor and creditor countries over how to distribute the pain. Creditors wanted debtors to make the sacrifices necessary for prompt and full debt service payments; debtors wanted creditors to play their part in helping reduce the political and social costs of austerity. And in this crisis, like most other debt crises, there was also a domestic axis of conflict. Citizens of debtor countries battled over who would make the most sacrifices to satisfy creditors; and within creditor countries, the dispute was over whether taxpayers, financial institutions, or others would pay whatever price there might be for a settlement. As it turned out, in this debt crisis the vast majority of the adjustment was done by the debtors, and there was no serious debt restructuring (Greece was an exception, given the clear impossibility of servicing its debt as contracted).
Σχετικές Αναρτήσεις
- Isabel Schnabel, Nicolas Véron, (2018), «Completing Europe’s Banking Union means breaking the bank-sovereign vicious circle», VoxEU, 16 Μαΐου
- Francisco Roch, Harald Uhlig, (2018), «The Dynamics of Sovereign Debt Crises and Bailouts», CEPR, discussion paper, Μάιος