Mario Draghi, presidente do BCE (esq. costas); George Osborne, ministro das Finanças do Reino Unido (esq. centro); Jean-Claude Juncker, ex-presidente do Eurogrupo (dir. centro) e Olli Rehn, comissário europeu dos assuntos monetários e financeiros (dir. costas) numa reunião do Ecofin Fonte: Jock Fistick /Bloomberg
A última semana foi dura para os “austeritários” europeus. Em poucos dias David Cameron, que mereceu um dos primeiros posts deste blogue, viu a Moody’s cortar a notação máxima ao Reino Unido pelo primeira vez deste 1978; em Itália, Monti está a caminho de uma derrota humilhante nas eleições legislativas; e na sexta-feira a Comissão Europeia reviu em baixa as perspectivas económicas para Europa e diz-se surpreendida.
Os críticos da estratégia europeia não perderam tempo aos que chamam de “austeritários” e entre eles estão nomes de peso na cena internacional, como Krugman, De Grauwe, Portes e Munchau.
Paul Krugman dedicou a sua coluna de hoje no New York Times às eleições em Itália, ao papel de Monti na estratégia europeia e aos maus resultados económicos na Europa:
For Mr. Monti was, in effect, the proconsul installed by Germany to enforce fiscal austerity on an already ailing economy; willingness to pursue austerity without limit is what defines respectability in European policy circles. This would be fine if austerity policies actually worked — but they don’t
(…)
austerity hasn’t even achieved the minimal goal of reducing debt burdens. Instead, countries pursuing harsh austerity have seen the ratio of debt to G.D.P. rise, because the shrinkage in their economies has outpaced any reduction in the rate of borrowing. And because austerity policies haven’t been offset by expansionary policies elsewhere, the European economy as a whole — which never had much of a recovery from the slump of 2008-9 — is back in recession, with unemployment marching ever higher.
Wolfgang Munchau, no FT diz que infelizmente os líderes europeus confudem austeridade com reformas. O resultado não poderá ser bom, defende:
By putting fiscal consolidation first, the political establishment also took a big gamble against what we know from history. A senior Italian official told me a while back that they had the situation under control. There would be a slight bump but the economy would take off afterwards. He was wrong. As last week’s European Commission forecasts confirm, the southern European economies are behaving as was predicted by those who thought austerity would sap growth and using monetary policy to offset it would be ineffective.
Jonathan Portes, no “Not the Treasury view”, não poupa a Comissão Europeia (e Olli Rehn em particular), nomeadamente pela recente carta em que o comissário criticou o recente debate sobre multiplicadores orçamentais:
I pointed out late last year that European Commission Vice President Olli Rehn has been predicting for at least two years that, thanks to the excellent policies recommended by the Commission and the European Central Bank, economic recovery in the crisis economies of the eurozone is imminent. However, this week – perhaps noting that outside the financial markets, the light at the end of the tunnel that he is fond of referring to appears to be receding – he's tried a different tack. Blame the economists
Para o final fica um recente texto de Paul De Grauwe e Yumei Ji, talvez a dupla da actualidade mais temível entre os críticos à estratégia europeia (merecidamente um dos textos mais lidos no Vox). Os economistas argumentam que a política europeia foi dominada por medo e pânico vindo dos mercados e que daí resultou austeridade excessiva que se derrotou a si própria:
it can be concluded that the sharp austerity measures that were imposed by market and policymakers’ panic not only produced deep recessions in the countries that were exposed to the medicine, but also that up to now this medicine did not work. In fact it led to even higher debt-to-GDP ratios, and undermined the capacity of these countries to continue to service the debt. Thus the liquidity crisis that started all this, risks degenerating into a solvency crisis.
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In order to avoid misunderstanding, we are not saying that southern European countries will not have to go through austerity so as to return to sustainable government finances. They will have to do so. What we are claiming is that the timing and the intensity of the austerity programs have been dictated too much by market sentiments of fear and panic instead of being the outcome of rational decision-making processes.
(…)
Financial markets did not signal northern countries to stimulate their economies, thus introducing a deflationary bias that lead to the double-dip recession.
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