Imbarazzante quello che sta succedendo a Cipro. Dopo la vittoria dei conservatori alle ultime elezioni, come al solito sotto ricatto della bancarotta, il nuovo governo ha firmato un accordo umiliante per il salvataggio da parte della UE. Il bail out, che doveva essere di 17 miliardi di Euro è stato ridotto a 10 miliardi. E da dove sono venuti questi soldi? Una parte da una tassa di quasi il 10% messa sui depositi sopra i 100 mila euro. E fin qui.... soprattutto tenuto conto che molti dei conti correnti di Cipro sono intestati a milionari russi che usano l'isola per evadere le già bassissime tasse russe, si può anche capire.
Ma una tassa del 6.75% su tutti gli altri depositi (anche se ora sembra possa essere ridotta ad un più modesto 2.5), quelli cioè sotto la franchigia dei 100 mila euro, è una vera e propria rapina dei piccoli risparmiatori ciprioti. Ora non bastano più solo i programmi di austerity che riducono occupazione e salario, ora bisogna pure pagare per essere "salvati". L'idea sarebbe quella di far pagare i responsabili invece di chiedere ai cittadini del resto d'Europa di contribuire. Eh già, peccato che sto discorso, quando si è trattato di salvare le banche non si sia mai fatto. E non solo. Come si domanda giustamente l'Economist nel primo articolo qui sotto (il secondo viene, invece, da El Pais), come mai coloro che hanno investito a Cipro, non incorrono in perdite? Le banche, le istituzioni finanziarie, ne escono senza un graffio, salvate, appunto, dai tax payers europei, mentre i ciprioti sono derubati dei loro risparmi. Se questa era l'attesa reazione della UE al nuovo vento politico che spira in Europa, c'è poco da stare tranquilli!
Unfair, short-sighted and self-defeating
da Economist
IT IS not a fudge, but it is still a failure. The euro zone’s
bail-out of Cyprus, which was sealed in the early hours of Saturday, did
get the bill for creditor countries down from €17 billion to €10
billion, as had been rumoured. But the way it did so was somewhat
unexpected.
Almost €6 billion of the savings for taxpayers in euro-zone countries came from losses imposed on depositors in Cyprus’s outsize banks. A one-off 9.9% levy will be imposed on all deposits over the insurance threshold of €100,000 before banks reopen after a bank holiday on Monday. That idea had been in the air for a while, not least because a lot of those uninsured deposits came from outside Cyprus, and from Russia in particular. The politics of saving wealthy Russians with money loaned by thrifty Germans were always going to be tricky.
What had not been anticipated was a 6.75% loss for savers with deposits in Cypriot banks below the insurance ceiling. Cypriots woke up this morning to find bank branches closed to them. By the time they will be able to get at their money, it will be too late. The offer of equity in banks to replace the value of their savings is meant to be a balm but it’s not a choice they would have made. Why this decision was taken is not yet clear. The most plausible explanation is that the Cypriot government itself preferred to spread the pain rather than wipe out non-resident depositors and jeopardise its long-term prospects as an offshore financial centre for Russian and other money.
Whatever the rationale, it is a mistake for three reasons. The first error is to reawaken contagion risk elsewhere in the euro zone. Depositors have come through the financial crisis largely unscathed. Now they have been bailed in, some of them in breach of an explicit promise that they can be sure of getting their money back even if a bank goes belly-up.
Euro-zone leaders will spin the deal as reflecting the unique circumstances surrounding Cyprus, just as they did the Greek debt restructuring last year. But if you were a depositor in a peripheral country that looked like it needed more money from the euro zone, what would your calculation be? That you would never be treated like the people in Cyprus, or that a precedent had been set which reflected the consistent demands of creditor countries for burden-sharing? The chances of big, destabilising movements of money (into cash, if not into other banks) have just shot up.
The second error is one of equity. There is an argument to be made over the principles of bailing in uninsured depositors. And there is a case for hitting everyone in Cypriot banks before any taxpayer in another country. But there is no moral imperative for whacking Cypriot widows and leaving senior bank bondholders untouched, as appears to be the case here; or not imposing any losses on sovereign-debt investors in Cyprus; or protecting depositors in the Greek operations of Cypriot banks, as has also happened. The euro zone may cloak this bail-out in the language of fairness but it is a highly selective treatment. Indeed, the euro zone’s insistence that this is a one-off makes that perfectly plain: with enough foreigners at risk and a small enough country to push around, you get an outcome like Cyprus. (That is one reason why people are now wondering about the implications of this deal for little Latvia, also home to lots of Russian money and itself due to join the euro zone in 2014.)
The final error is strategic. The Cypriot deal has no coherence in the larger context. The euro crisis has been in abeyance for a few months, thanks largely to the readiness of the European Central Bank to intervene to help struggling countries. The ECB’s price for helping countries is to insist they go into a bail-out programme. The political price of going into a programme has just gone up, so the ECB’s safety net looks a little thinner.
The bail-out appears to move Europe further away from the institutional reforms that are needed to resolve the crisis once and for all. Rather than using the European Stability Mechanism to recapitalise banks, and thereby weaken the link between banks and their governments, the euro zone continues to equate bank bail-outs with sovereign bail-outs. As for debt mutualisation, after imposing losses on local depositors, the price of support from the rest of Europe is arguably costlier now than it ever has been.
It is also hard to square this outcome with the ongoing overhaul of finance. The direction of efforts to improve banks’ liquidity position is to encourage them to hold more deposits; the aim of bail-in legislation planned to come into force by 2018 is to make senior debt absorb losses in the event of a bank failure. The logic behind both of these reform initiatives is that bank deposits have two, contradictory properties. They are both sticky, because they are insured; and they are flighty, because they can be pulled instantly. So deposits are a good source of funding provided they never run. The Cyprus bail-out makes this confidence trick harder to pull off.
Other than that, it is a really good deal.
fonte: http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2013/03/cyprus-bail-out
Almost €6 billion of the savings for taxpayers in euro-zone countries came from losses imposed on depositors in Cyprus’s outsize banks. A one-off 9.9% levy will be imposed on all deposits over the insurance threshold of €100,000 before banks reopen after a bank holiday on Monday. That idea had been in the air for a while, not least because a lot of those uninsured deposits came from outside Cyprus, and from Russia in particular. The politics of saving wealthy Russians with money loaned by thrifty Germans were always going to be tricky.
What had not been anticipated was a 6.75% loss for savers with deposits in Cypriot banks below the insurance ceiling. Cypriots woke up this morning to find bank branches closed to them. By the time they will be able to get at their money, it will be too late. The offer of equity in banks to replace the value of their savings is meant to be a balm but it’s not a choice they would have made. Why this decision was taken is not yet clear. The most plausible explanation is that the Cypriot government itself preferred to spread the pain rather than wipe out non-resident depositors and jeopardise its long-term prospects as an offshore financial centre for Russian and other money.
Whatever the rationale, it is a mistake for three reasons. The first error is to reawaken contagion risk elsewhere in the euro zone. Depositors have come through the financial crisis largely unscathed. Now they have been bailed in, some of them in breach of an explicit promise that they can be sure of getting their money back even if a bank goes belly-up.
Euro-zone leaders will spin the deal as reflecting the unique circumstances surrounding Cyprus, just as they did the Greek debt restructuring last year. But if you were a depositor in a peripheral country that looked like it needed more money from the euro zone, what would your calculation be? That you would never be treated like the people in Cyprus, or that a precedent had been set which reflected the consistent demands of creditor countries for burden-sharing? The chances of big, destabilising movements of money (into cash, if not into other banks) have just shot up.
The second error is one of equity. There is an argument to be made over the principles of bailing in uninsured depositors. And there is a case for hitting everyone in Cypriot banks before any taxpayer in another country. But there is no moral imperative for whacking Cypriot widows and leaving senior bank bondholders untouched, as appears to be the case here; or not imposing any losses on sovereign-debt investors in Cyprus; or protecting depositors in the Greek operations of Cypriot banks, as has also happened. The euro zone may cloak this bail-out in the language of fairness but it is a highly selective treatment. Indeed, the euro zone’s insistence that this is a one-off makes that perfectly plain: with enough foreigners at risk and a small enough country to push around, you get an outcome like Cyprus. (That is one reason why people are now wondering about the implications of this deal for little Latvia, also home to lots of Russian money and itself due to join the euro zone in 2014.)
The final error is strategic. The Cypriot deal has no coherence in the larger context. The euro crisis has been in abeyance for a few months, thanks largely to the readiness of the European Central Bank to intervene to help struggling countries. The ECB’s price for helping countries is to insist they go into a bail-out programme. The political price of going into a programme has just gone up, so the ECB’s safety net looks a little thinner.
The bail-out appears to move Europe further away from the institutional reforms that are needed to resolve the crisis once and for all. Rather than using the European Stability Mechanism to recapitalise banks, and thereby weaken the link between banks and their governments, the euro zone continues to equate bank bail-outs with sovereign bail-outs. As for debt mutualisation, after imposing losses on local depositors, the price of support from the rest of Europe is arguably costlier now than it ever has been.
It is also hard to square this outcome with the ongoing overhaul of finance. The direction of efforts to improve banks’ liquidity position is to encourage them to hold more deposits; the aim of bail-in legislation planned to come into force by 2018 is to make senior debt absorb losses in the event of a bank failure. The logic behind both of these reform initiatives is that bank deposits have two, contradictory properties. They are both sticky, because they are insured; and they are flighty, because they can be pulled instantly. So deposits are a good source of funding provided they never run. The Cyprus bail-out makes this confidence trick harder to pull off.
Other than that, it is a really good deal.
fonte: http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2013/03/cyprus-bail-out
El rescate de Chipre provoca el primer corralito en la Eurozona
da El Pais
Europa cerró anoche el acuerdo para rescatar a Chipre,
pero a costa de imponer una tasa a los ahorradores que empuja a las
autoridades a decretar un corralito parcial. El acuerdo alcanzado en la
madrugada del sábado incluye un impuesto que se parece como una gota de
agua a una quita en los depósitos chipriotas. Todas las cuentas de la
pequeña isla del Mediterráneo —tanto de residentes como de no
residentes— quedarán sujetas a una tasa, que se pagará solo una vez, del
9,99% para los que superen los 100.000 euros, y del 6,75% para los que
no lleguen a esa cantidad.
Con esta medida, la Eurozona da un paso más allá al permitir por primera vez que los depositantes tengan que pagar parte del rescate,
incluso los que tienen menos de 100.000 euros, la cantidad asegurada
por las normas europeas. Jörg Asmussen, miembro del consejo de gobierno
del Banco Central Europeo,
aseguró que las autoridades ya han tomado las medidas necesarias para
que la parte correspondiente a la tasa se quede “congelada” en las
cuentas bancarias para garantizar que pueda ser recaudada. El Gobierno del conservador Nikos Anastasiadis
aprobará este fin de semana una ley para permitir esta operación. Se
sabrán entonces los detalles de un bloqueo que, en principio, no tendría
por qué durar más que el tiempo necesario para recaudar el impuesto.
Pero mientras tanto, los ahorradores chipriotas verán bloqueados parte
de su dinero en los bancos. Las sucursales estarán cerradas el lunes por
ser festivo, pero el mismo sábado, muchos chipriotas se han lanzado a los cajeros a poner a salvo lo que puedan de sus ahorros.
El presidente de Chipre, Nicos Anastasiades, ha declarado que el rescate aprobado esta madrugada "era la única solución para evitar la bancarrota en el país". De haber fracasado, ha añadido, uno de los principales bancos del país habría quebrado.
Decisión difícil
El ministro de Finanzas de Chipre,
Michael Sarris, admitió que esta decisión “ha sido muy difícil”, pero
que las consecuencias de una bancarrota habrían sido peores. Sarris
explicó que los ahorradores recibirán acciones de los bancos por un
valor equivalente a lo que pierdan en sus depósitos. “El tamaño del
sector bancario es tan grande [en Chipre] que hemos tenido que diseñar
un programa específico en el que estaba justificado involucrar a los
ahorradores”, aseguró el presidente del Eurogrupo, Jeroen Dijsselbloem,
que estima que el nuevo impuesto sobre los depósitos recaudará 5.800
millones de euros. Con esta decisión, se supera el último escollo para
aprobar un programa de ayudas de 10.000 millones de euros acordado tras
diez horas de discusiones entre los ministros de la zona euro y los
líderes del FMI y del BCE.
El Fondo Monetario Internacional
ha logrado su objetivo de reducir el monto de un rescate que hace meses
se calculaba en torno a 17.000 millones de euros, una cifra reducida en
comparación con las ayudas concedidas a otros países, pero que equivale
a todo el PIB chipriota. El organismo que encabeza Christine Lagarde,
apoyado por Alemania, se ha empeñado en evitar a toda costa que la deuda
pública del país se disparara hasta niveles insostenibles.
Pero si querían reducir el programa de
asistencia financiera, el dinero había que buscarlo en otros sitios. Y
sobre esas fuentes adicionales de ingresos es sobre lo que los ministros
europeos han estado discutiendo hasta bien entrada la madrugada. Además
de la tasa sobre los depósitos bancarios y otra sobre los intereses, se
aprobará una quita para sus bonistas júnior, una subida del impuesto de
sociedades al 12,5%, un ambicioso plan de privatizaciones y un ajuste
presupuestario del 4,25% del PIB. Además, se redactará una evaluación
independiente sobre el lavado de dinero en la banca y las autoridades de
Nicosia se comprometen a reducir el tamaño de su sector financiero
hasta alcanzar la media europea. “El Eurogrupo confía en que estas
iniciativas permitan que la deuda pública de Chipre, que se prevé que
llegue al 100% del PIB en 2020, permanezca en una senda sostenible e
impulse el potencial de crecimiento de la economía”, asegura el
comunicado.
Una de las obsesiones de países como
Alemania era que el FMI participara en el programa de ayudas a la
economía chipriota. Lagarde confirmó que propondrá al consejo de la
institución que contribuya a financiar el rescate financiero, aunque no
especificó con qué cantidad.
La mayor parte de la ayuda se destinará
a recapitalizar a un sector financiero hipertrofiado que había quedado
herido de muerte tras la quita de la deuda aprobada por sus vecinos
griegos. El dinero que Europa va a prestar Chipre, cuya economía supone
tan solo el 0,2% del PIB de la Eurozona, es muy inferior al inyectado en
Grecia, Irlanda o Portugal —los otros tres países que han necesitado un
rescate total—; o incluso en España, que recibió ayudas para su sector
financiero. Pero muchos dirigentes temían que una quita entre los
ahorradores chipriotas generara un pánico bancario que se extendiera al
resto de la Eurozona
fonte: http://economia.elpais.com/economia/2013/03/16/actualidad/1363411787_894846.html
fonte: http://economia.elpais.com/economia/2013/03/16/actualidad/1363411787_894846.html
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