The ECB is the only institution in the European Union that is able to provide unlimited funding to governments, but its governing statute prohibits government bailouts. Nonetheless, the ECB has provided large amounts of liquidity to the financial system, indirectly softening the pressure on government debt refinancing. For 18 months, it has been buying government bonds – worth more than €200 billion ($254 billion) – on secondary markets under its Securities Market Program. Moreover, it has provided loans to the banking sector, recently launching a three-year refinancing operation that generated demand from eurozone banks for €489 billion.
In his early December address to the European Parliament, ECB President Mario Draghi stressed his commitment to unlimited support of banks to avert the risk of a credit crunch. The wall of money unleashed by the ECB just before Christmas should be seen as a measure matching that commitment.
Draghi left it up to national banks to decide whether to use the liquidity to buy high-yield government bonds. French President Nicolas Sarkozy and France’s central bank (a member of the ECB) were less timid; they urged Italian and Spanish banks to buy their governments’ debt.
The political logic behind such a plea is straightforward. If the banks proceed with purchases of their own government bonds, all public debt will be progressively renationalized, along with loans to the private sector, which undercapitalized banks have recently been providing only locally. The so-called “Sarkozy carry trade” is no solution to the systemic consequences of a sovereign-debt meltdown, but it would resolve a politically delicate situation, in which vulnerable eurozone governments hold foreign banks in just few countries to ransom. Greece taught France a lesson.
Worryingly, the evidence so far is that banks have not used the cash, instead parking it at the ECB. The bank’s overnight deposit facility rose from €250 billion to €400 billion just after the extraordinary refinancing operation – and to €480 billion in recent days. That behavior reflects banks’ uncertainty, but leaving the money with the ECB is a loss-making operation that cannot be sustained indefinitely. Sooner or later, the banks will use the cash. The question is how.
Banks’ immediate interest is to adjust to the new capital requirements and restore their balance sheets to financial health, which implies that they will use the ECB money in a way that enables them to meet this objective most cost effectively. So, for example, if they use the cash to continue financing the private sector, they will ensure that loans go to creditworthy customers.
This means that, like credit provided by Italian and Spanish banks over the last several months, most of the new cash will be lent locally to safe households and large established firms. That will allow bank markets to continue functioning, but it is unlikely to inject the type of stimulus that European economies now require.
The alternative is the one urged by Sarkozy and the Banque de France: purchases by Europe’s banks of their countries’ government bonds. Of course, it is difficult to imagine that banks will use all of the money to buy the same assets that some of them have been trying to sell over the past few months. But that does not mean that they won’t buy any of them. In fact, some of the €489 billion already has been used for that purpose.
This should not come as a surprise. Italian and Spanish banks, which received funds from the ECB at a very low rate, can profit greatly from the high yields that their governments’ bonds now offer. These investments can stabilize financing for governments while strengthening banks’ balance sheets.
There is a caveat, though. Banks have bought only short-term assets, mainly with maturities of about three years (to match their liabilities with the ECB). This means that there is no appetite for supporting governments beyond what the ECB itself is willing to do. More importantly, the ECB is de facto the lender of last resort, while foreign banking systems are sharply reducing their exposure to risks abroad.
The ECB’s wall of money is likely to support the real economy only mildly. By contrast, if banks use the money now parked at the ECB to continue buying short-maturity government bonds, that wall of money would have a large impact on eurozone countries’ financial inter-linkages. Instead of falling on foreign banks in just a few exposed countries, a default would land mostly on the ECB’s balance sheet, whose losses are distributed to all eurozone central banks – a soft form of debt socialization that may well prepare the ground for Eurobond-type solutions.
Benedicta Marzinotto is a research fellow at
Bruegel and Lecturer in Political Economy at the University
of Udine.
Benedicta
Marzinotto: 歐洲央行巨款背後的玄機
發自布魯塞爾——縱觀整個金融危機時期，歐洲央行的行為一直都在自身“能做什麼”以及“允許做什麼”之間躊躇不定。
歐洲央行是歐盟唯一能向各國政府提供無限量融資的機構，但該行自身的管治規定卻禁止其對政府進行緊急援助。但即便如此，歐洲央行依然向金融系統注入了大量的流動性，從而間接緩解了各國政府所承受的還債資金壓力。在近18個月以來，該行一直在其証券市場操作程序（Securities
Market Program）的指導下從二級市場買入相關政府債券——約值2000多萬歐元（近2540億美元）。此外它還向銀行部門提供貸款，比如最近啟動的一項三年期再融資行動就從計劃向歐元區銀行發放4890億歐元資金。
歐洲央行行長馬裡奧·德拉吉在去年12月初向歐洲議會做出的演說中強調了自己無限支持各銀行以避免信貸緊縮（credit crunch）的決心。而歐洲央行隨後在聖誕節前放出的巨款則似乎就是為了印証這一點。
德拉吉把是否將這些流動性用來購買高回報政府債券的決定權留給了各國銀行。而法國總統薩科齊和法國央行（歐洲央行成員之一）則毫不遮遮掩掩，直接敦促意大利和西班牙各大銀行購買本國政府的債務。
這種敦促行為背後的政治邏輯其實相當直白。如果那些銀行不斷購入本國政府的債券，那麼所有公共債務將逐漸被重新國有化，而那些資本不足的銀行近來只向本地區發放的私人部門貸款也將如此。這個所謂“薩科齊套息交易（Sarkozy carry trade）”並不能消弭主權債務崩潰所帶來的系統性後果，但卻能破解一個微妙的政治態勢：本身已經極為脆弱的各歐元區政府卻被其中幾個國家的銀行所劫持，隻能被迫持有這些銀行。而法國人正是從希臘身上得到了這個教訓。
但令人擔心的是，各大銀行目前卻不去動用這些現金，而是將其存放在歐洲央行那裡。在上文中那個不同尋常的再融資行動啟動之後，歐洲央行的隔夜存款能力從2500億歐元飆升到4000億歐元，最近又上升到了4800億歐元。這種行為雖然反映了各大銀行的猶豫不定，但把錢留在歐洲央行意味著遭受虧損，也不可能永遠持續下去。遲早這些銀行都得動用這些現金，問題是怎麼用而已。
而各大銀行眼下最緊迫的利益就是適應新的資本要求並將自己的資產負債表恢復到財務健康狀態，這意味著他們將用一種性價比最高的方式運用歐洲央行的錢來實現這一目標。那麼倘若他們想用這些現金來為私人部門提供持續融資的話，就必須確保這些錢被交到最有信譽的客戶手裡。
這意味著，就像意大利和西班牙各銀行在過去幾個月所發放的貸款那樣，大部分現金都將流到了當地富裕家庭和大型企業手中。這將允許銀行市場繼續發揮作用，但卻不太可能為歐洲經濟注入急需的那種刺激。
而另一個替代方案則是薩科齊和法國中央銀行所敦促的那樣：讓歐洲各大銀行去收購自己所在國的政府債券。當然，也很難想象這些銀行會用自己所有的錢去收購幾個月前拼命想甩掉的東西。但這也不意味著他們一點也不會買。事實上4890億歐元中已經有一部分被用於這一用途了。
其實這也是意料之內的事。意大利和西班牙兩國的銀行最近都從歐洲央行處得到了資金，而且利率極低，自然也有望在當前高回報率的本國政府債券上大撈一筆。這些投資既能穩定政府的財務狀況，同時也會對銀行的資產負債狀況加以改善。
但值得警惕的是，這些銀行購買的都隻是到期期限為三年左右（為履行自身對歐洲央行所負的責任）的短期資產。這意味著一旦歐洲央行收手不干，對各國政府的支持也將隨之消失於無形。更重要的是，當外國銀行系統大幅減少自身在所在國以外所承受的風險之時，歐洲央行實際上成為了這筆借款的最後承擔者。
歐洲央行這筆巨款隻能對實體經濟提供些許支持。相反，如果銀行用目前存放在歐洲央行的錢來持續購買短期政府債券，那麼這筆巨款將對歐元區國家的金融聯動狀況產生極大影響。而最終的違約將不會出現在某些受災國的外國銀行身上，而是很可能體現在歐洲央行的資產負債表之中，並由所有歐元區成員國的中央銀行共同承擔損失——而這種債務社會化的溫和形式將很可能為歐洲債券這類方案的出台埋下伏筆。
Benedicta
Marzinotto， University of Udine 政治經濟學講師，布魯塞爾智庫機構“Bruegel”研究員。
