Trovato.
Financial Times 30/08/2017
Lo copioincollo (non è molto attraente da leggere così) perchè è nella versione che ho a pagamento.
IMF should expel Venezuela
Expulsion to prompt a bond default could bring down the oil-based autocratic regime Read next beyondbrics Global nutrition crisis demands change in response AN HOUR AGO Nicolás Maduro has clung to power despite growing pressure to resign © Reuters Share on Twitter (opens new window) Share on Facebook (opens new window) Share on LinkedIn (opens new window) 15 Save to myFT AUGUST 30, 2017 by Marcos Buscaglia, Alberdi Partners The free world should make a concerted effort to bring down the oil-based autocratic regime of President Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela. T
he way to make international pressure effective is to expel the country from the International Monetary Fund, which would spark a sovereign and quasi-sovereign debt default, making the regime ultimately unsustainable. Mr Maduro has been strengthening his grip on the economy and society in recent weeks. Protests seem so far unable to deter his march toward the establishment of a narco-autocracy. The opposition will present candidates — where allowed — in the October regional elections, an issue that has brought divisions again. In any case, belief in the fairness of electoral processes is negligible. A constitutionally sanctioned transfer of power seems almost impossible. The government has the legal tool to maintain power; control of a Constitutional Assembly that supersedes all other pre-existing powers. It also has the money to maintain power in the form of oil revenues. Oil revenues, which make for almost all of Venezuela’s exports, are essential for Mr Maduro to keep his grip on power. Not only do they finance the imports in an economy that has all but destroyed its productive sector, but they also form a vital aspect of the system through which military and government officials profit from the opacity of the exchange rate system, the trading of sovereign and quasi-sovereign bonds and the state distribution of goods. US sanctions are ineffective Latin American governments have been slow and ineffective in limiting Mr Maduro, deterred by the few allies he still has in the region. The Organization of American States could not condemn his government as a few Caribbean countries that are part of Petrocaribe, the alliance formed to receive oil from Venezuela under preferential conditions, vetoed the initiative. Mercosur, the Southern Cone trading bloc, only suspended Venezuela on August 7, having been deterred from doing so earlier by the leftwing government of Uruguay. Other regional bodies such as Alba, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of our America, supported Mr Maduro. beyondbrics Emerging markets guest forum beyondbrics is a forum on emerging markets for contributors from the worlds of business, finance, politics, academia and the third sector. All views expressed are those of the author(s) and should not be taken as reflecting the views of the Financial Times. In this context, the US government stepped in by imposing sanctions. Initially, they applied only to Venezuelan officials. On August 25, the US government tightened sanctions and barred US-based financial institutions from dealing in new Venezuela sovereign and PdVSA bonds, including existing bonds owned by the country’s public-sector entities. US sanctions have so far been ineffectual. Venezuela’s sovereign bond prices traded up on the day the new sanctions were imposed; some of them were up by 15 per cent. Although the sanctions will hamper the government’s access to the markets to repay or restructure its debts, they do nothing to curtail non-market alternatives such as financing from China and Russia. They are also counter-productive: Venezuelans at large are against US sanctions. A poll by Datanalisis in July shows that 73 per cent of Venezuelans were against US sanctions. The government is reacting to the sanctions as if Venezuela was about to be invaded and it may help it to regain some support from the population. The sanctions come from a big neighbour with an interventionist past and distrusted by many in the region. This suspicion among Latin Americans is not that surprising. Decades of “gunboat” diplomacy, “dollar” diplomacy and puppet governments left a permanent strain on Latin America. Richard Olney, US secretary of state, once argued that “the United States is practically sovereign on this continent”. President Theodore Roosevelt declared that “brutal wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in general loosening of the ties of civilised society, may finally require intervention by some civilised society, and in the Western Hemisphere the United States cannot ignore its duty”. Although this Roosevelt “corollary” of the Monroe doctrine was posited many decades ago, it is still alive in the words of President Trump when he declared; “We have many options for Venezuela, including a possible military option if necessary.”
Multilateralism works best But there is an alternative multilateral option that could prove more effective in toppling Mr Maduro’s regime: kicking Venezuela out of the IMF. There are precedents for this: in 1954, Czechoslovakia was kicked out for “failing to provide required data”. Argentina was thought to be en route toward expulsion in the last years of Cristina Kirchner’s government over issues regarding the “quality of the official data reported to the fund”. The government of Venezuela’s policies are at odds with the IMF through law. The IMF’s Regional Economic Outlook of the Western Hemisphere includes an “Annex 2.1. Disclaimer”, explaining that with regard to Venezuela there are information gaps, incomplete information and there are “difficulties in interpreting certain reported economic indicators in line with economic developments”. Venezuela’s consumer prices are excluded from the IMF’s flagship publication, the World Economic Outlook. In addition, Venezuela’s policies are in defiance of the IMF’s Article IV with regards to its exchange rate arrangement and the IMF’s surveillance of its policies. It is politically feasible to expel Venezuela from the IMF. Article XXVI of the Articles of Agreement of the IMF regulate the “compulsory withdrawal” of a member. First, if a member fails to fulfil any of its obligations, the fund can declare it ineligible to use the resources of the fund. If, after a reasonable period, policies are not corrected, the fund may — by a 70 per cent majority of the voting power — suspend the voting rights of the member. Active diplomacy and leadership should be able gather the desired votes. We think that the definition of the “reasonable period” of Article XXIV and “reasonable time” of Section 22 of the IMF’s bylaws should be adapted to Venezuela’s current situation. Time is of the essence, as the economy is crumbling. Ricardo Hausmann, a Venezuelan-born professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, defined its situation as an “unprecedented collapse” that “dwarfs any in the history of the US, western Europe, or the rest of Latin America”.
An expulsion from the IMF would set Venezuela toward default. Venezuela’s external bond covenants stipulate that the end of IMF membership is “an event of default”. Debts would be accelerated. A sovereign default would most likely keep Venezuela out of other financing arrangements such as loans from China, Russia and other forms of commercial lending, as creditors do not usually want to lend to a debtor in arrears. Although PdVSA and the Republic are two separate issuers, and there are no cross-default clauses between their bonds, we think a sovereign default may finally affect the operations of PdVSA. Although we are not lawyers, common sense indicates to us that it could be simpler to argue that PdVSA is an “alter ego” of the sovereign. In fact, Crystallex, a Canadian miner, has recently got an order from a US court to seize Venezuelan funds held in the US. The funds were held by PDV Holding, Inc, owned by PdVSA. The brief presented by the plaintiff argues that “PdVSA is so extensively controlled by the Venezuelan Government that it is impossible to say where one ends and the other begins”. It would become impossible for PdVSA to keep exporting if its assets are attached around the globe. Deprived of its cash cow, the regime would crumble and it would be forced to negotiate a transition. We think the free world must act in a multilateral fashion, to show the regime it is not only the US it is facing. It also must act fast, as Venezuela is experiencing a humanitarian crisis that will only deepen if the regime stays in power.