Capital Markets Push EFSF Obtain Guarantor Role
European Finance Ministers left open the possibility of a “guarantor” in the procedure of indirect restructuring with a haircut of the Greek debt at the Eurogroup meeting on Monday.
Despite reservations and objections, the ministers agreed to examine expeditiously within the next few days the European Commission΄s plan (and the special task force for Greece) to assign the role of guarantor to EFSF, Europe’s temporary rescue fund.
This solution -which had been proposed in the past but had been rejected by Germany, Finland and the Netherlands- provides interventions in the secondary market by the EFSF, the absorption of troubled economies’ bonds at market prices and their replacement of longer maturity, lower interest rates and at nominal prices between initial price and purchase price.
Thus, it is believed that the bond market would regain confidence in the troubled economies’ bonds since:
*there would be a buyer of high creditability, the EFSF
*and a haircut at initial nominal price would occur, as the EFSF would obtain the bonds at market prices (with a decrease of 35-45% of current prices)
The Commission claims that this solution satisfies the prerequisite of private participation (banks and insurance funds) in the restructuring costs, as Germany has been asking for a long time.
The disadvantage of this solution is that the EFSF would need to double its capital to €1.5 trillion to maintain its “AAA” rating in order to borrow at low interest rates from the markets.
In other words, Germany and other Central European countries of the Eurozone will have to contribute more in the rescue fund either with new capital or with guarantees.
Moreover, the borrowing of EFSF and its successor ESM in 2013 would require the issue of Eurobond soon in order to meet the needs created recently.
Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs Olli Rehn stated recently that the Commission would be ready to do that by the end of the year.
The European Central Bank supports this solution in order to disengage from the role of “guarantor”, which is beyond its obligations.
The road to the new solution is still full of obstacles because this move involves jumping in the direction of political and fiscal consolidation, for which there are no favourable conditions yet.
The European Commission, however, believes that the dramatic pressure during the last days from capital markets on Italian, Spanish and now Belgian bonds has raised a formidable threat to the euro. This is estimated to force the Eurozone to proceed with initiatives that would give the EFSF a key interventionist role in order to protect the euro.
(capital.gr)
***
Interessante, da leggere.