Eurozone to bypass Brussels and rely on IMF ...

November 30, 2011

Eurozone to bypass Brussels and rely on IMF

On 29 November, the Eurogroup did not come up with any ground-breaking decisions on the Eurozone's debt problems, leaving this up to the European Council, namely the 27 EU leaders meeting on 9 December. Obviously in the meantime, Berlin and Paris will come up with their new plan for a definitive Eurozone solution.

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In short, the Eurogroup's 17 finance ministers released the €8 billion sixth tranche of soft loans to Greece along the lines of the June 2010 package as they were expected to do, and issued a reminder in so doing that European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) leveraging is not a thing of the present but instead will take some time for the full firepower of the facility to be utilised. In any case, the Eurogroup confirmed that the EFSF will be able to intervene in primary and the secondary markets for state debt and will also be used to refinance banks if governments prove unable to do so within their own territories. The problem, however, is that the EFSF’s arsenal will be below the required level if Italy or Spain need assistance or, even worse, a bailout in the short term.

So ministers did not clarify what will happen in the short term if another member of Eurogroup needs financial assistance. Of course, Italy is not going to have liquidity problems over the next few weeks, but these are more than likely to arrive sometime next year, and this will be earlier rather than later during 2012. Rome will discover the hard way that it is going to cost Italian taxpayers very dearly if capital markets continue to demand interest rates in the region of 8% to refinance the country's state debt.

Next year, Italy’s maturing state debt will be anything from €200-€300 billion. How can this amount be refinanced in regular markets if the ten-year Italian bond yield is oscillating at around 8%? The same is true for Spain, to say nothing of Greece, Ireland and Portugal, with these three being locked out of capital markets for the foreseeable future. So, in reality, the problems are likely to culminate within the next few months if not weeks and the final solution must be ready or at least broadly agreed upon before the end of the year. If such a solution to the Eurozone's sovereign-debt problem is not agreed over the coming weeks for the rest of the world to see, the dead end may come much earlier.

It is very interesting to note, however, that the surplus Eurozone countries, which are expected to contribute the bulk of the required financial power, are likely to bypass the European Union and the Eurozone institutions and instead use the IMF to bail out their peers in the EU money zone. Dutch Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager said that the IMF could be provided with more firepower, to assist of bail out Eurozone countries in trouble. This new money from the IMF could come from Eurozone countries or even from countries outside the EU – Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, for example, has said that Moscow could support the Eurozone with €10 billion, but via an IMF mechanism and not a direct loan to the EFSF.

The same is probably true for developing countries such as China and Brazil, which have shown willing to help Europe out of its sovereign-debt crisis, given that the EU is the largest consumer on earth and that their growth depends largely on Europeans’ ability to continue consuming. Endowing the IMF with more money could be realised either through an increase of the SDRs or bilaterally, through direct contributions from the central banks of the Eurozone's member states or central banking institutions outside Europe. The EFSF will remain as financial mechanism only by working with the IMF.

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