Greece's Inconclusive Debt Deal
25 Maio 2016 - 6:42PM
Dow Jones News
By Simon Nixon
Greece has a new debt deal -- but then it was always going to
get a new debt deal.
Time and again, the eurozone has demonstrated that it is bound
together by impressive reservoirs of political will: not only the
will of debtors such as the Greeks, for whom the euro is both a
trusted store of value and a symbol of their common European
destiny, but also the will of creditors, who have been unwilling to
risk the great costs and inevitable political upheavals of a
eurozone breakup. Indeed, the determination to reach a deal was
even greater at a time the breakup of the European Union itself is
on the table in the U.K.'s Brexit referendum.
Even so, the deal agreed on Tuesday night is hardly the decisive
break in the Greek debt crisis originally envisaged under the
bailout deal thrashed out last summer. By now, Athens was supposed
to have undertaken far-reaching reforms of its tax and pension
system, the eurozone to have delivered meaningful debt relief, and
the International Monetary Fund to have agreed to help finance the
program.
Instead, Greece has promised to tackle the reforms "if needed"
to hit its 2018 budget target, the eurozone will deliver the debt
relief "if needed" when the program ends in 2018, and the IMF will
join the program by the end of this year, subject to technical
clarifications. This is a classic euro-fudge, whose purpose is to
kick the can decisively down the road, deferring the grittiest
political decisions until 2017 and 2018.
The big winner is Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who was
swept to power 18 months ago vowing to resist reforms to the
country's inefficient public administration and its unaffordably
generous pension system. He has again succeeded in shielding his
electoral base from cuts that the IMF has long insisted were
essential to put Greece's finances on a sustainable footing.
His decision to prioritize preserving public sector and
pensioner privileges over immediate debt relief exposes the
long-running debate over debt relief for what it always was: a
second-order issue whipped up for the benefit of international
opinion to distract attention from the Greek government's
long-running reluctance to reform.
The deal is also a partial win for German finance minister
Wolfgang Schäuble. True, he will now have to cross a red line by
asking the Bundestag to disburse a further EUR10 billion ($11.2
billion) of bailout loans to Greece without the IMF fully on
board.
But he has at least succeeded in postponing detailed decisions
on debt relief until after the German elections in 2018, while at
the same time ensuring that any debt relief remains contingent on
Athens fully complying with its program. That could point to future
trouble if Athens fails to hit its budget targets, which seems
plausible given it has chosen once again to try to achieve those
targets by piling yet more taxes on the same narrow base.
On the face of it, the deal is a defeat for the IMF, which
appears again to have buckled under pressure from U.S. and European
governments on its board into giving its blessing to a flawed
deal.
But that is not quite right. The IMF resisted intense eurozone
pressure to give an unconditional commitment to join the bailout.
That won't happen until it is satisfied that the eurozone is
committed to putting Greece's debt on what it considers a
sustainable footing by the end of the program.
That may require the eurozone to make further politically
unpalatable concessions, not least because the IMF will base its
own debt sustainability analysis on an assumption that Greece is
incapable of achieving a budget surplus before interest payments
above 1.5%, whereas the eurozone program continues to envisage a
surplus of 3.5%.
In fact, the real losers are the Greek people, particularly
younger citizens who are likely to continue to pay the price for
Athens's political choices. This deal will certainly allow Greece a
much-needed period of stability and should lead to a significant
easing of financial conditions as the government clears its arrears
and the banks gain access to cheaper European Central Bank
funding.
Athens also has committed to some reforms that should improve
the business environment and boost confidence, including to the way
banks deal with bad loans and to the welfare and tax systems. But
Mr. Tsipras's reluctance to embrace radical reform of Greece's
failed economic model points to an underwhelming recovery.
On the other hand, the deal buys time for Mr. Tsipras to embark
on his own more gradual process of reform. One reason Berlin
softened its approach was that Greek finance minister Euclid
Tsakolotos convinced Mr. Schäuble that he recognized the long-term
need for radical tax and pension reform, even if he didn't believe
it was politically possible to deliver it in the time that the IMF
was demanding, according to people familiar with his thinking.
What is certain is that having secured this deal, Mr. Tsipras
and Mr. Tsakolotos can no longer hide behind the legacy of their
predecessors. Eurozone taxpayers have effectively agreed to absorb
the bill for last year's ruinous stand-off. Greece's fate now lies
in Athens's hands. If this deal fails, the Greek people will know
whom to blame.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 25, 2016 17:27 ET (21:27 GMT)
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