经济学人:欧洲危机 大国间的政治博弈

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　　欧洲危机

　　The end of the euro’s Indian summer

　　欧元区小阳春之末

　　After a few sunny weeks, a political and economic storm is battering¹ the euro zone once again度过几个星期的好日子后，政治经济风暴再度席卷欧元区THE sugar-rush brought on by the European Central Bank’s pledge to intervene in bond markets to help troubled euro-zone countries—some diplomats² call it “Mario Draghi’s ice cream”—was bound to fade at some point. But nobody expected it to fade quite so suddenly this week.

　　欧洲中央银行承诺干预债券市场用来帮助欧元区国家摆脱困境，这些“短暂的春天”被一些外交官称为“马里奥.德拉吉（Mario Draghi）的冰淇淋”，在某种程度上注定会失效的。但没有人预料到它在本周消退得如突然。

　　Anti-austerity protests in Spain and Greece, uncertainty³ over their bail-out terms, the resurgence⁴ of Catalan secessionism, the likely departure of Mario Monti as Italy’s prime minister next year, obstacles to creating a credible⁵ banking⁶ union (see Charlemagne) and a darkening economic outlook all combined to dispel⁷ hope that the euro zone was out of the woods. Spanish and Italian bond yields shot back up and European stockmarkets fell.

　　西班牙和希腊的对紧缩的抗议活动,他们获得救助条件的不确定性,加泰罗尼亚分离主义的复苏,可能离任的马意大利总理Mario Monti（马里奥·蒙蒂），以及建立一个安全可靠银行联盟(见Charlemagne专栏)的诸多障碍和经济前景的暗淡无光，所有这些不利因素都预示着欧元区走出困境的希望越来越渺茫。西班牙和意大利两国债券收益虽有所回升，但欧洲股市整体却已跌入谷底。

　　The summer’s panic about the euro zone had been assuaged⁸ by the ECB’s announcement of plans to buy unlimited⁹ amounts of short-dated debt of vulnerable countries such as Spain and Italy. This backstop would depend on their governments first seeking assistance from the euro-zone rescue funds, and then submitting to a formal, externally monitored reform programme.

　　今年夏天和欧元有关的恐慌，在欧洲央行的一份申明中——计划向西班牙、意大利等经济危机较为严重的国家，购买大量其无限的短期债务，使得其困境有所缓解。这一担保会取决于他们的政府首先向欧元区救助基金申请帮助, 然后提交一份正式并接受国外监管的改革计划。

　　Both out of national pride, and because Germany does not want Spain to ask for more money, the Spanish government has hesitated about taking the ECB’s outstretched hand. Behind European officials’ public praise for the deficit¹⁰-cutting measures taken by Mariano Rajoy, the Spanish prime minister, there is dismay over his ineptness¹¹ in handling the crisis, not least the ever-changing estimates of the money needed to recapitalise Spain’s banks.

　　这些都出自于民族自豪感,因为德国不希望西班牙借贷更多资金, 西班牙政府对于欧洲央行提供的资金帮助犹豫不定。在欧洲各国对于西班牙首相马里亚诺·拉霍伊（Mariano Rajoy）的赤字削减政策一片赞扬声的背后，这位西班牙首相在处理这些危机时总是让人们对他的无能感到失望，特别是在西班牙银行重组所耗费的资金的数目上，这个数字总是一而再再而三地发生改变。

　　As The Economist¹² went to press, Mr Rajoy was due to unveil a budget for next year and a new set of structural¹³ reforms, as well as the results of a detailed¹⁴ assessment¹⁵ of Spain’s bank-recapitalisation needs. These have been co-ordinated with European officials, perhaps to allow Mr Rajoy to claim that Spain will face no fresh conditions beyond the ones he has announced himself. But the gains from any such choreography have been offset¹⁶ by clashes on the streets of Madrid during anti-austerity protests and by the resurgence of Catalan nationalism. Mr Rajoy’s attempt to rein¹⁷ in spending in Spain’s autonomous¹⁸ regions has prompted Artur Mas, the president of Catalonia, to call an election on November 25th, after his demand for more tax autonomy was rebuffed. Mr Mas is talking of holding a referendum on independence, which could throw Spain into a constitutional crisis on top of its economic one.

　　正当《经济学人》印刷之时,拉霍伊将公布一个下一年预算和一套新的结构改革,以及一个西班牙的银行资本重组的详细的评估结果。这些都需要与欧洲官员协调,也许是为了让拉霍伊先生声明,西班牙将不再对已声明的条件外另加新的条件。但是，由于反紧缩抗议期间，马德里街巷的冲突，及加泰罗尼亚民族主义的复苏，任何预算之中的收益都已经被抵消了。拉霍伊先生试图控制在西班牙自治区的支出的想法，刺激到泰罗尼亚地区长官Artur Mas ,在拉霍伊要求更多自治权遭到拒绝后，他提出11月25日举行一次选举的意见。而Artur Mas先生所提出的举行独立公投,可能使得西班牙不仅要面临经济行危机，又即将陷入宪法危机。

　　If Mr Rajoy’s stock in European capitals has fallen, that of Antonis Samaras, the Greek prime minister, has risen. Once reviled¹⁹ for resisting austerity while in opposition²⁰, the conservative leader has, since his election in June, impressed fellow leaders with a new-found zeal²¹ for fiscal²² discipline and reform. Yet it will be hard to reconcile Mr Samaras’s call for an extra two years to bring down the deficit with creditors’ refusal to lend him more money, in effect a third bail-out.

　　如果拉霍伊先生在欧洲各国政要的声望已经下跌,那么希腊总理Antonis Samaras将会逆势上升。这位反对派保守党领袖向来在抵制紧缩中被诟病,然而他在今年6月的选举中上任以来财政纪律和改革上的果断干练风格, 给各派领导人留下了深刻的印象。然而，一方面Samaras要求延长两年时间以缓解财政赤字，另一方面希腊的债权人又拒绝继续向其借贷资金（这其实是第三次援助计划）。

　　Mr Samaras is caught between the rescuers’ demands for more spending cuts and boiling anger on the streets. Police fired tear gas at hooded²⁴ protesters hurling²⁵ petrol bombs on September 26th, the day of a general strike, while tens of thousands of demonstrators outside the Greek parliament shouted “EU, IMF Out!”. European officials say much now depends on whether, after some massaging²⁶ of Greece’s figures, the IMF can be cajoled into declaring its gargantuan²⁷ debt to be “sustainable”. The fund, for its part, is privately²⁸ urging euro-zone countries to write off some of their loans to Greece, but that is unlikely until after Germany’s election next year.

　　Samaras 现在被夹在援助者要求更大程度地减少开支和希腊民众对此要求沸腾的怒火之间。在9月26日这天的大罢工中，警察向蒙面投掷汽油炸弹的抗议者发射了催泪弹, 而成千上万的示威者在希腊议会大楼外高喊“欧盟、国际货币基金组织滚出去！”。欧洲官员表示,现在大部分取决于，国际货币基金组织经过希腊的‘按摩’是否相信并宣布其庞大的债务是“可持续的”。该基金组织,就其本身而言,在私下敦促欧元区国家放弃他们对希腊的债权,但是这到明年德国大选之前都是不可能的。

　　In Italy there is nervousness about the course of still-fragile reforms after the technocratic²⁹ prime minister, Mario Monti, declared that he would not seek to stay in office beyond general elections due next spring. Mr Monti told CNN: “I think it’s important that the whole political game resumes in Italy, hopefully with a higher degree of responsibility and maturity³⁰.” Given Italy’s politics, and the reforms that Italy still has to undertake, that is asking a lot.

　　而在意大利，学者型总理Mario Monti宣布在明年的大选中，将按照原计划不会寻求连任，而举国上下都对还未完成稳定的改革进程还有些担心。Monti对CNN（美国有线新闻网）称: “在我看来，意大利政治博弈的重启是很重要的，希望时机成熟的时候，会实行新的制度，与此同时还需要高度的责任感。”但是考虑到意大利政治现状，和现在仍在进行中的改革，这个似乎有点困难。

　　Confidence in the future of the euro is hardly being helped by signs that Germany and other creditor²³ countries are backtracking on last June’s summit deal to create a new euro-zone bank supervisor³¹ and, thereafter, to recapitalise troubled banks directly, in countries such as Spain and Italy, with money from a euro-zone rescue fund. Along with the Netherlands and Finland, Germany now wants direct recapitalisation to exclude “legacy” assets. Karl Whelan, a prominent Irish economist, summed it up with a blog post headlined: “Germany to Spain and Ireland: drop dead”.

　　去年六月峰会上，德国和其他债权国达成创建一个新欧元区银行监管机构的协议，并希望借此通过欧元区救助基金来直接重组西班牙、意大利等国的问题银行。而今这些国家开始背弃这一协议，这一信号丝毫无助于增强大家对于欧元前景的信心，因此，就算有欧元区援助基金的贷款的帮助，但是对欧元区一些国家困难重重的银行（比如西班牙和意大利）重组没有什么直接性的帮助。除了荷兰和芬兰，现在德国也想通过直接资金重组，以冲减“遗留”下来的资产。一名著名的爱尔兰经济学家Karl Whelan用一篇博客的题目总结了这一切：“德国对西班牙和爱尔兰说：去你的”。

 

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