O Constitucional alemão decidiu remeter para o Tribunal de Justiça Europeu (TJE) a sua decisão preliminar sobre a legalidade, à luz do direito europeu, do programa OMT (Outright Monetary Transactions, ou compra direta de dívida dos Estados), do BCE. O tribunal alemão considerou-o, à partida, ilegal, mas pretende que o TJE aprecie o assunto e imponha condições adicionais ao programa para que os juízes alemães possam reconsiderar a sua decisão.
Paul de Grauwe, importante economista belga, escreve hoje no blogue da London School of Economics sobre este assunto (ver aqui o artigo completo) e desmonta a argumentação dos juízes do Tribunal Constitucional alemão.
Primeiro, o resumo da argumentação do TC alemão (destaques meus):
«The main argument used by the German judges, which was very much influenced by the Bundesbank advice on OMT, can be summarized as follows. When the ECB buys government bonds it mixes monetary and fiscal policies. The fiscal component of OMT arises from the fact that the government bonds bought by the ECB can lose value if the governments whose bonds are bought default. If that happens the ECB will incur a loss that can wipe out its equity. As a result, governments of the member countries will have to use taxpayers’ money to recapitalize the ECB. Thus, by buying government bonds the ECB puts future taxpayers at risk. The latter may be forced to pay taxes, without due democratic process. Indeed decisions to tax can only be taken by national parliaments, and not by a politically irresponsible bureaucracy like the ECB.»
Sobre isto diz de Grauwe:
«This sounds like a very weighty argument. If true, there is not much one can put in the way of the judges and one has to conclude that the OMT program undermines the basic democratic principle of “no taxation without representation”. The problem with this argument is that it is wrong.»
E prossegue, explicando porquê. Em resumo, um banco central não pode ir à falência. Não está em momento algum em causa o dinheiro dos contribuintes. Para os detalhes, convém ler a argumentação toda. Um excerto:
«But suppose that for reasons of reputation the member states decide to recapitalize the ECB. Will that not inevitably involve taxpayers in Germany, France, etc? The answer is no. This will just be a bookkeeping operation without involving taxpayers. When national governments decide to recapitalize the ECB to make up for the loss of €1 billion, they transfer bonds to the ECB worth 1 billion, allowing the ECB to increase its equity by €1billion. These transfers occur using the same capital shares. Thus the ECB holds government bonds worth €1 billion. As a result, each government pays interest to the ECB in the same proportion to its capital share. But at the end of the year the ECB transfers these interest revenues back to the same governments using the same capital shares.*
It will be clear that a recapitalization of the ECB would be a pure bookkeeping operation. It would not require Eurozone citizens to pay more taxes. Each government gets back from the ECB exactly what it has put into the ECB. The German and other taxpayers can sleep peacefully. In this whole operation, including the default by the Italian government, taxpayers would not be asked to pay one additional eurocent. The fact that a recapitalization of the ECB can only be a bookkeeping operation should not come as a surprise. A government that can default cannot possibly be a fiscal backup of a central bank that cannot default.»
Mas não há riscos, em circunstância alguma? Há. Estes apenas:
«There are of course risks involved in the use of the OMT program. These risks have to do with potential inflation and with moral hazard. But none of these risks have anything to do with taxpayers that are being forced to pay a tax without a democratic vote in national parliaments. The inflation risk arises from the fact that a government bond purchase leads to a creation of money base. Elsewhere I have argued that this risk is small as the ECB will be called upon to activate the OMT program during moments of financial crisis when economic agents scramble for liquidity. During such moments the greater risk is deflation, not inflation.
The risk of moral hazard is a real one. It arises because the OMT could give incentives to governments to be more relaxed about debts and deficits. In order to deal with this risk a separation principle should be applied. The responsibility of the central bank is to provide liquidity in times of crisis. The European Commission is responsible for containing the moral hazard risk. It has a legal mandate to do so through the Stability and Growth Pact that has been strengthened since the outburst of the sovereign debt crisis.»
Conclusão (riscos incluídos):
«One can conclude that an important argument used by the judges of Karlsruhe to declare the OMT illegal testifies to an appalling lack of understanding of the basics of central banking. The OMT program does not create a risk that Eurozone citizens will have to pay taxes arising from losses of the ECB. It is quite terrifying that such an important judgment that could destroy the ECB’s necessary responsibility of lender of last resort is based on ignorance. One can only hope that the judges of Luxembourg will not show the same degree of ignorance.»
Gosto em saber que agora citam o principal conselheiro económico do Durão Barroso. Mas se fizessem uma busca mais pormenorizada saberiam que Paul de Grauwe (PdG), “importante economista belga” recomedou fazer-se às poupanças portuguesas (Gregas, Espanholas, etc) fiscalmente não-residentes na Alemanha: apropriação para compensar a saída do euro (inevitável, vide o timing do fim do Gold Standard nos anos 30s). Depois da apropriação dos euros fiscalmente não-residentes na alemanha (para compensar perdas no Target2; ao menos sabem o que é isso?!) o que se segue? Guess what? um balcão perto de si!! Sim os gordos banqueiros (falidos) ficaram com as nossas poupanças!! Porque é que eu perco tempo convosco??!! Nem eu sei pois foi a primeira (e última) que provei esta aspirina (não deveria ser algalia?!)
Olha lá, ó Honda, como deves saber muito disto poderias explicar-nos o que é o Target2 como se fossemos catraios de cinco anos?
Obrigadinho, pá!
Porreiro pá… aqui vai, pá…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TARGET2
Tá se bem, pá…
Honda: Paul de Grauwe tem tecido as mais veementes críticas às políticas de austeridade impostas a muitos países da zona euro. Alguns jornais portugueses já publicaram os seus artigos.
Honda, deve have aí uma confusão de nomes. Tomáramos nós que o Barroso escutasse o PdGrawe. Infelizmente não tem sido o caso. Poucos economistas têm criticado tão veementemente a política de austeridade do eixo Berlim-Bruxelas…
parece que foi conselheiro do burroso, mas foi há bués, antes da crise da bolha. agora dá aulas na lse, onde o tózero foi ontém debitar umas patacoadas a condizer com o discurso actual do méne.
http://www.econ.kuleuven.be/ew/academic/intecon/Degrauwe/CV-PDG-2008.pdf
Ó Honda, pá, eu vi logo que por palavras tuas não eras capaz de explicar nada… Deves ser economista… ou andas a ver se abichas um lugarito na pulhítica.
Ich bin ein europäisch
afinal voltei!!
Faz sentido vermos o q escreveu Hans-Werner Sinn (IFO) sobre a forma como se pode restaurar a competitividade da economia portuguesa ou grega num mecanismo intermédio (banda de negociação) fora do euro… (não é este post em baixo mas procurem no site http://www.cesifo-group.de/ifoHome/policy/Staff-Comments-in-the-Media/Press-articles-by-staff/Archive/Eigene-Artikel-2014.html…)
Comment on Paul De Grauwe
Internet article by Hans-Werner Sinn, EUROPP Blog, 10. März 2014
Comment on Paul De Grauwe ‘Why the European Court of Justice should reject the German Constitutional Court’s ruling on Outright Monetary Transactions’
Paul De Grauwe cites the German Constitutional Court’s decision as follows: “The fiscal component of OMT arises from the fact that the government bonds bought by the ECB can lose value if the governments whose bonds are bought default. If that happens the ECB will incur a loss that can wipe out its equity. As a result, governments of the member countries will have to use taxpayers’ money to recapitalize the ECB.”
And he maintains that this is the Court’s “main argument”.
This representation of the Court’s argument is erroneous. In fact, while concerned about the potential write-off losses on government bonds if held until maturity, the Court did not go into the details of how, and through which mechanisms, the losses would be transferred into the budgets of member states. Its reasoning is legal, rather than economic. At no stage does the Court argue that the ECB needs to be recapitalized to compensate for the losses.
The economic argument, on the other hand, is trivial. If the ECB has to book write-off losses because a state goes bankrupt, an eternal stream of interest stops flowing to the finance ministries of the Eurozone whose present value is equal to the write-off losses. Given the planned monetary policy stance, or to be more precise, given the time path of the monetary base, the ECB cannot recoup the interest losses by giving more refinancing credit to the banks or buying new bonds, since this would inflate the monetary base. This argument is independent of whether or not the ECB needs to be recapitalized or could even operate with negative equity capital.
The Eurosystem’s true economic equity capital is the sum of the accounting equity capital and the present value of seignorage, the latter being the monetary base if calculated under static conditions. By the end of 2013, the accounting equity was € 353 billion, and the present value of seignorage under static conditions was € 1.262 trillion, giving a sum of € 1.615 trillion. Under dynamic conditions the sum would even be larger, perhaps more than € 3 trillion. The Eurosystem’s true economic equity capital is the present value of the interest income of the Eurosystem to which national treasuries are entitled. Write-off losses would reduce this present value one-to-one and would have to be made good by the taxpayers or through cuts to the income of the recipients of government transfers.
‘Why the European Court of Justice should reject the German Constitutional Court’s ruling on Outright Monetary Transactions’, Paul De Grauwe, EUROPP Blog, 4. März 2014
Espero q considerem esta abordagem geradora de novos pensamentos sobre 1 problema de todos nós… Até sempre!