The euro: where we are at

Wolfgang Munchau writes:

The EFSF will expire in 2013, at which point a new, tougher crisis regime will kick in. The EU has chosen this particular two-step construction for mainly political reasons, but from a funding perspective it is a nightmare. All existing bondholders will be protected until 2013. All government bonds issued from 2013 onwards will have collective action clauses. This means that if a government cannot service the debt, it can agree a haircut with a majority of investors – with legal force for all investors, including those who disagree with the majority vote. Looking at it from a risk-management perspective, this means that the entire default risk of the eurozone periphery will be concentrated on post-2013 bond issues. No one in their right mind would buy such junk bonds.

The way the new crisis mechanism is constructed ensures that the market for European periphery bonds is going to remain thin. What is now being conceived as a new crisis mechanism may end up as the eurozone’s principal funding agency if no one else will provide the funds. It would issue its own bonds – eurozone bonds – underwritten by the few remaining triple A-rated sovereigns, most importantly Germany and France. It is hard to see how such a construction could be sustainable. Should there ever be a default, Berlin and Paris would have to pay up – or default themselves.