经济学人263:希腊和欧元

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　　希腊和欧元

　　Crisis revisited

　　危机重现

　　The euro is still vulnerable, and Greece is not the only problem

　　欧元仍然脆弱不堪，而希腊不是其中唯一的问题。

　　IT WAS almost exactly five years ago that the euro crisis erupted, starting in Greece. Investors¹ who had complacently² let all euro-zone countries borrow at uniformly low levels abruptly³ woke up to the riskiness⁴ of an incompetent⁵ government borrowing money in a currency which it could not depreciate⁶. There is thus a dismal⁷ symmetry in seeing the euro crisis flare⁸ up again in the place where it began.

　　距上一次由希腊引爆的欧债危机已经过去整整五年了。投资者曾经无所顾忌地以统一的低利率借钱给欧元区国家，现在却猛然醒悟，认识到一个无能的政府正在以不会贬值的货币不断地借钱。欧元危机从当年开始的国家重新蔓延，不得不说是一次悲催的重蹈覆辙。

　　欧元.jpg

　　The proximate cause of the latest outbreak of nerves was the decision by the Greek government, now headed by the generally competent Antonis Samaras, to advance the presidential election to later this month. The presidency⁹ is largely ceremonial, but if Mr Samaras cannot win enough votes in parliament for his candidate, Stavros Dimas, a general election will follow. Polls suggest the winner would be Syriza, a populist party led by Alexis Tsipras. Although Mr Tsipras professes¹⁰ that he does not want to leave the euro, he is making promises to voters on public spending and taxes that may make it hard for Greece to stay. Hence the markets' sudden pessimism¹¹.

　　导致投资者精神突然紧张的直接原因是希腊政府的决定。现任希腊领导人Antonis Samaras相对还比较有能力，他将在本月晚些时候提前进行总统选举。本次选举基本上是仪式性的，但如果Samaras不能在议会为其接班人Stavros Dimas赢得足够多的选票，接下来还会进行一次普选。民意调查显示，由Alexis Tsipras 领导的民粹主义政党左翼联盟将会赢得普选。尽管Tsipras表示他不会支持希腊脱离欧元区，但他在公开场合向选民做出的关于公共支出和税收的承诺会令希腊很难留在欧元区。因此市场突然悲观情绪弥漫。

　　As it happens, there is a good chance that Mr Dimas, a former EU commissioner¹², will win the presidential vote at the end of this month (see article). But the latest Aegean tragicomedy is a timely reminder¹³ both of how unreformed the euro zone still is and of the dangers lurking¹⁴ in its politics.

　　刚巧，对于前欧盟委员Dimas来说是在本月底赢得总统选举的好机会。但是，最近发生在这个爱琴海国家的悲喜剧在不断提醒人们，欧元区的改革是多么的止步不前，且其政治中隐藏了多少危机。

　　It is true that, ever since the pledge by the European Central Bank's president, Mario Draghi in July 2012 to “do whatever it takes” to save the euro, fears that the single currency might break up have dissipated. Much has been done to repair the euro's architecture, ranging from the establishment of a bail-out fund to the start of a banking¹⁵ union. And economic growth across the euro zone is slowly returning, however anaemically, even to Greece and other bailed-out countries.

　　现实是，自从2012年7月欧洲央行主席Mario Draghi发誓要不惜一切代价拯救欧元之后，人们对于单一货币可能会崩溃的担忧消除了。为了修复欧元的组织结构人们做了很多工作，从建立应急储备基金到开始统一银行业。欧元区国家的经济，即使是希腊和其他获得援助的国家，也在缓慢增长。

　　But is that good enough? Even if the immediate¹⁶ threat of break-up has receded¹⁷, the longer-term threat to the single currency has, if anything, increased. The euro zone seems to be trapped in a cycle of slow growth, high unemployment and dangerously low inflation. Mr Draghi would like to respond to this with full-blown quantitative¹⁸ easing, but he is running into fierce opposition¹⁹ from German and other like-minded ECB council members (see article). Fiscal²⁰ expansion is similarly blocked by Germany's unyielding insistence²¹ on strict budgetary discipline. And forcing structural²² reforms through the two sickliest core euro countries, Italy and France, remains²³ an agonisingly slow business.

　　但是这就够了么？即使当下分崩离析的危险暂时解除了，欧元这一单一货币的长期危险反而增加了。欧元区似乎被困在缓慢增长、高失业率和极其危险的低通胀怪圈里。Draghi希望能通过全面的量化宽松对这一困境做出反应。但他的主张遭到了德国和其他持有相似观点的欧洲央行成员的激烈反对。同样，德国坚持严格的预算控制不仅毫无成效也阻碍了财政扩张。另外，强迫两个欧洲最疲弱的核心国家——意大利和法国进行结构改革，同样也进展缓慢。

　　Japan is reckoned to have had two “lost decades”; but in the past 20 years it grew by almost 0.9% a year. The euro zone, whose economy has not grown since the crisis, is showing no sign of dragging itself out of its slump²⁴. And Japan's political set-up is far more manageable than Europe's. It is a single political entity²⁵ with a cohesive²⁶ society; the euro zone consists of 18 separate countries, each with a different political landscape. It is hard to imagine it living through a decade even more dismal than Japan's without some political upheaval²⁷.

　　日本被认为已经经历了“失去的二十年”，但是在过去的20年中，日本基本保持了0.9%的年增长率。欧元区的经济自从危机之后就没有增长，且没有任何迹象表明其有能力拜托这一困局。而且日本的政治体系也比欧洲更易管控。这是一个拥有单一政治实体的有凝聚力的社会；而欧元区有18个国家，每个都有不同的政治面貌。很难想象如果没有一场政治巨变，欧元区能撑过一个比日本更悲催的十年。

　　Greece is hardly alone in having angry voters. Portugal and Spain both have elections next year, in which parties that are fiercely against excessive austerity are likely to do well. In Italy three of the four biggest parties, Forza Italia, the Northern League and Beppe Grillo's Five Star movement, are turning against euro membership. France's anti-European National Front continues to climb in the opinion polls. Even Germany has a rising populist party that is against the euro.

　　希腊不是唯一一个有着愤怒选民的国家。葡萄牙和西班牙明年都将举行选举，那些反对过度节俭政策的政党们更有可能胜出。意大利四大政党中的三个：意大利前进党、北方联盟和Beppe Grillo领导的五星运动党，都反对意大利继续成为欧盟成员国。法国民意调查显示，反欧盟的国民阵线的支持率继续攀升。即便是在德国，也有一个反欧盟的民粹主义政党正在崛起。

　　It's the politics, stupid

　　这是愚蠢的政治

　　Indeed, the political risks to the euro may be greater now than they were at the height of the euro crisis in 2011-12. What was striking then was that large majorities of ordinary voters preferred to stick with the single currency despite the austerity imposed by the conditions of their bail-outs, because they feared that any alternative would be even more painful. Now that the economies of Europe seem a little more stable, the risks of walking away from the single currency may also seem smaller.

　　确实，欧元的政治危机可能比2011-12年欧债危机顶峰时期更加危险。令人惊讶的是，尽管当时由于紧急援助而使得人们不得不节衣缩食，绝大多数普通选民仍宁愿维持单一货币政策，因为他们担心任何改变会变得更糟。现在，欧洲经济似乎变得稍微稳定了些，放弃单一欧元的风险也变得更小了。

　　Alexis de Tocqueville once observed that the most dangerous moment for a bad government was when it began to reform. Unless it can find some way to boost growth soon, the euro zone could yet bear out his dictum.

　　Alexis de Tocqueville曾经做过观察，他认为一个失败政治最危险的时刻是在其正准备开始改革的时候。除非它能很快找到刺激增长的方法，欧元区可能仍需为其坚持的政策提供证明。

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