Authored by Hans-Werner Sinn via Project Syndicate,
Twenty years after the formal creation of the euro, few can honestly say that the single currency has been a success. After fueling a massive credit bubble in Southern Europe in its first decade, it gave rise to an array of complex monetary-policy and transfer schemes in its second – and more trouble is looming as it enters its third...
In May 1998, irrevocable conversion rates for the currencies that would be merged into the euro were implemented. In a sense, this makes the single currency just over 20 years old. The first decade of its life had the feeling of a party, particularly in Southern Europe; but the second decade brought the inevitable hangover. Now, as we enter the third decade, the prevailing mood seems to be one of increasing political radicalization.
The original party was a cornucopia of cheap credit, which capital markets happily issued to the countries of Southern Europe under the protection of the euro. For a while, these countries finally had enough money to increase public-sector salaries and pensions, as well as spur private consumption and investment.
But the credit flooding into these countries created inflationary bubbles, which burst when the 2008 financial crisis in the United States spread to Europe. As capital markets refused to extend further credit, Southern Europe’s previously halfway-competitive but now overpriced economies soon ran into serious trouble.
The Southern Europeans’ response was to start printing what they could no longer borrow. Aided by the European Central Bank – which loosened its collateral policy for refinancing credits and increased its tolerance for emergency liquidity assistance and credits under the Agreement on Net Financial Assets – they drew hundreds of billions of euros out of the monetary system through so-called Target overdrafts. And from 2010 onward, they were the recipients of EU fiscal rescue packages.
But, because financial markets viewed these rescue packages as insufficient, the ECB, in 2012, issued a promise to cover unlimited member-state government bonds under its “outright monetary transactions” program, turning them into de facto euro bonds. Finally, in 2015, the ECB launched its quantitative-easing program, whereby member states’ central banks bought €2.4 billion ($2.8 billion) worth of securities, including €2 billion of government bonds. Accordingly, the eurozone’s monetary base grew dramatically, from €1.2 trillion to over €3 trillion.
But, rather than using the extra money to lubricate their domestic economies, Southern European countries used it to carry out payment orders to Germany. They forced the Bundesbank to credit the purchase of goods, services, real estate, corporate shares, and even whole companies – or at least to credit the filling of bank accounts in Germany that would be readily available for asset purchase should the risk of a euro breakup arise. The purchases of goods and services are one of the reasons for Germany’s huge export surpluses....