期刊名称：Economic Sociology : the European Electronic Newsletter
印刷版ISSN：1871-3351
出版年度：2011
卷号：12
期号：2
出版社：Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
摘要：The problems around the Euro are still far from being settled.
The trouble started with the rumor around a possible
Greek insolvency in early 2010 which triggered a series of
meetings of the European Governments. At the end, the
principles of the Maastricht treaties were revised in two
major points: First, a joint rescue fund, called “European
financial stability facility” (EFSF), was created in order to
help member states to refinance themselves at acceptable
conditions. In practice this meant that the “no bail-out”
principle of the Maastricht treaties was abandoned – at
least until the scheduled termination of the program in
2013. Second, the European central bank abandoned her
sacred principle of not buying state bonds and intervened
in favor of Greece. At that time it had been already clear
that Greece would not remain the only country having
problems with refinancing its public debt; further candidates
– Portugal, Spain, Italy, Ireland, Belgium – became
the object of concerns and were downgraded in their
credit ratings. After Greece, Ireland run into acute trouble
and had to seek shelter under the European umbrella.
Interest rates and risk premiums for Portuguese and Spanish
bonds have risen remarkably too, and the European
Commission has entered into controversial discussions with
the Governments on the proposal of a further expansion of
the EFSF (Der Spiegel 2011) and on the idea of introducing
“Euro bonds”. The strongest resistance against a further
Europeanization of public debts comes from the German
Government, who is not enthusiastic about the prospect of
taking the role of a permanent paymaster. However, as a
consequence of the lasting political discussions, unrest in
the capital markets will continue and most likely will create
further trouble for the Euro.
