Crisis in the Eurozone. Costas Lapavitsas
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has unfolded in different ways across mature countries, including those within the European Union. Germany has avoided the explosion of household debt that recently took place in other mature countries and peripheral eurozone countries. The performance of the German economy has been mediocre for many years, while great pressure has been applied on German workers’ pay and conditions. The main source of growth for Germany has been its current account surplus inside the eurozone, resulting from pressure on pay and conditions rather than on superior productivity growth. This surplus has been recycled through foreign direct investment and German bank lending to peripheral countries and beyond.
The implications for the eurozone have been severe. Financialisation in the periphery has proceeded within the framework of the monetary union and under the dominant shadow of Germany. Peripheral economies have acquired entrenched current account deficits. Growth has come from expansion of consumption financed by expanding household debt, or from investment bubbles characterised by real estate speculation. There has been a general rise of indebtedness, whether of households or corporations. Meanwhile, pressure has been applied to workers’ pay and conditions across the periphery, but not as persistently as in Germany. The integration of peripheral countries in the eurozone, then, has been precarious, leaving them vulnerable to the crisis of 2007–9 and eventually leading to the sovereign debt crisis.
Institutional bias and malfunction in the eurozone
The institutional mechanisms surrounding the euro have been an integral part of the crisis. To be more specific, European Monetary Union is supported by a host of treaties and multilateral agreements, including the Maastricht Treaty, the Stability and Growth Pact and the Lisbon Strategy. It is also supported by the European Central Bank, in charge of monetary policy across the eurozone. The combination of these institutions has produced a mix of monetary, fiscal, and labour market policies with powerful social implications.
A single monetary policy has been applied across the eurozone. The ECB has targeted inflation and focused exclusively on the domestic value of money. To attain this target the ECB has taken cognisance of conditions primarily in core countries rather than assigning equal weight to all. In practice this has meant low interest rates across the eurozone. Further, the ECB has operated deficiently since it has not been allowed to acquire and manage state debt. And nor has it actively opposed financial speculation against member states. As a result, the ECB has emerged as protector of financial interests and guarantor of financialisation in the eurozone.
Fiscal policy has been placed under the tight constraints of the Stability and Growth Pact, though considerable residual sovereignty has remained with member states. Fiscal discipline has been vital to the acceptability of the euro as international reserve, allowing the euro to act as world money.3 Since it lacks a unitary state and polity, the eurozone has not had either an integrated tax system or fiscal transfers between areas. In practice, fiscal rules have been applied with some laxity in core countries and elsewhere. Peripheral countries have attempted to disguise budget deficits in a variety of ways. Nonetheless, fiscal stringency has prevailed during this period.
Given these constraints, national competitiveness within the eurozone has depended on the conditions of work and the performance of labour markets, and in this regard EU policy has been unambiguous. The European Employment Strategy has encouraged greater flexibility of employment as well as more part-time and temporary work. There has been considerable pressure on pay and conditions resulting in a race to the bottom across the eurozone. The actual application of this policy has, however, varied considerably, depending on welfare systems, trade union organisation, and social and political history.
It is apparent that the institutions of the eurozone are more than plain technical arrangements to support the euro as domestic common currency as well as world money. Rather, they have had profound social and political implications. They have protected the interests of financial capital by lowering inflation, fostering liberalisation, and ensuring rescue operations in times of crisis. They have also worsened the position of labour compared to capital. And not least, they have facilitated the domination of the eurozone by Germany at the expense of peripheral countries.
Peripheral countries in the shadow of Germany
Peripheral countries joined the euro at generally high rates of exchange – ostensibly to control inflation – thereby signing away some competitiveness at the outset. Since monetary policy has been set by the ECB and fiscal policy has been constrained by the Stability and Growth Pact, peripheral countries have been encouraged to improve competitiveness primarily by applying pressure on their workers. But they have faced two major problems in this regard. First, real wages and welfare states are generally worse in the periphery than in the core of the eurozone. The scope for gains in competitiveness through pressure on workers is correspondingly less. Second, Germany has been unrelenting in squeezing its own workers throughout this period. During the last two decades, the most powerful economy of the eurozone has produced the lowest increases in nominal labour costs, while its workers have systematically lost share of output. EMU has been an ordeal for German workers.
German competitiveness has thus risen further within the eurozone. The result has been a structural current account surplus for Germany, mirrored by current account deficits for peripheral countries. This surplus has been the only source of dynamism for the German economy throughout the 2000s. In terms of output, employment, productivity, investment, consumption, and so on, German performance has been mediocre. At the core of the eurozone lies an economy that delivers growth through current account surpluses deriving in large part from the arrangements of the euro. German surpluses, meanwhile, have been translated into capital exports – primarily bank lending and foreign direct investment – the main recipient of which has been the eurozone, including the periphery.
This is not to imply that workers in peripheral countries have avoided pressures on pay and conditions. Indeed, the share of labour in output has declined across the periphery. It is true that the remuneration of labour has increased in nominal and real terms in the periphery, but productivity has risen by more – and generally faster than in Germany. But conditions within the eurozone have not encouraged rapid and sustained productivity growth in peripheral countries – partly due to middling levels of technology – with the exception of Ireland. Peripheral countries have thus lost competitiveness as the nominal compensation of German workers has remained practically stagnant throughout the period.
Confronted with a sluggish but competitive Germany, peripheral countries have opted for growth strategies that have reflected their own history, politics and social structure. Greece and Portugal have sustained high levels of consumption, while Ireland and Spain have had investment booms that involved real estate speculation. Across the periphery, household debt has risen as interest rates fell. The financial system has expanded its weight and presence across the economy. But in 2009–10 it became apparent that these strategies were incapable of producing positive long-term growth results.
The integration of peripheral countries in the eurozone has been precarious as well as rebounding in favour of Germany. The sovereign debt crisis has its roots in this underlying reality rather than in public profligacy in peripheral countries. When the crisis of 2007–9 hit the eurozone, the structural weaknesses of monetary union emerged violently, taking the form of a public debt crisis for Greece, and potentially for other peripheral countries.
The impact of the crisis of 2007–9 and the role of finance
The immediate causes of the crisis of 2007–9 lay in the US mortgage bubble which became global due to securitisation of subprime assets. European banks began to face liquidity problems after August 2007, and German banks in particular found that they were heavily exposed to problematic, subprime-related securities. During the first phase of the crisis, core eurozone banks continued to lend heavily to peripheral borrowers in the mistaken belief that peripheral countries were a safe outlet. Net exposure rose substantially in 2008.
But reality gradually changed for banks as liquidity became increasingly scarce in 2008, particularly after the ‘rescue’ of Bear Stearns in early 2008 and the collapse of Lehman Brothers six months later. To rescue banks, the ECB has engaged in extensive liquidity provision, accepting many and debatable types of paper as collateral for secure debt. ECB actions have allowed banks