Saknar du också en enkel introduktion till Greklands finanskris? I en serie inlägg som publiceras här på bloggen diskuteras många av de frågor och påstående som Greklandskrisen givit upphov till. Vanliga påstående granskas och sätts i sitt sammanhang. Texterna är hämtade från «Sell your islands, you bankrupt Greeks»: 20 popular fallacies concerning the debt crisis, utgiven av Rosa Luxemburgstiftelsen. Texten utgår från Tysklands roll, men mycket av det som förekommer i den tyska diskussionen har förekommit i svensk press också.
«THE CREDITORS SHOULD FOOT THE BILL!»
The facts: The Greek state has around 350 billion euros in debt. The creditors are: Greek banks (23%), other Greek creditors (20%), governments in the Eurozone (12%), the European Central Bank (18%), the International Monetary Fund (4%), other foreign creditors/banks (23%) (1). The moneylenders could waive some of the loans issued in order to save Greece.
Context: That sounds fair, because if this happened the financial investors would then play a role in reducing Greece’s debt. At the same time, it involves serious risks. First of all, it would lead to significant losses for the banks. «If debts were cut by 50 percent in Greece, this would mean a burden of 25 billion euros for the German banks alone» (IMK: debt cuts bring more disadvantages than advantages, May 2010). Secondly, this would be the ruin of the main creditors, the Greek banks. Thirdly, if the Eurozone allows a country to go bankrupt in its midst, other states would also lose their credit standing. «The worry about Greece could flow over to other periphery states and lead to a sell- out of their bonds» (DZ Bank, Interest markets, 9.5.2011). The problem could then spread to states like Spain, and its economy is more than twice the size of the economies of Greece, Portugal and Ireland put together (2). This would certainly be the end of the Eurozone, which is the backbone of the German economy. As we can see, as long as Europe is dependent on the good will of financial investors, it will remain difficult to make these investors pay to get Greece out of its debt situation. One more comment: The Greek national debt is not a major problem for the Eurozone. At a total of 350 billion euros, it is a mere 3.7 % of the Eurozone’s GDP.
(1) VP Bank, Investment News, 1.6.2011
(2) This would mean further risks for the banks. According to the Bank for International Settlements, Greece, Portugal, Ireland and Spain owed the European banks 1,340 billion euros at the end of 2010. A quarter of these were German banks (http://bis.org/publ/qtrpdf/r_qa1106. pdf#page=100)
Engelsk text: Stephan Kaufmann: «Sell your islands, you bankrupt Greeks»: 20 popular fallacies concerning the debt crisis, utgiven av Rosa Luxemburgstiftelsen. Sid 14
Greklands kris är en kris för hela Euro-samarbetet. Om valutan ska vara stabil förutsätter det att de länder Euron vilar på också är stabila. Därför påverkar utvecklingen i Grekland framtiden för hela Euro-samarbetet. Ovanstående text fokuserar på Tysklands roll som är den största aktören inom EMU. Men alla länder inom EMU tvingas ta ställning till hur krisen ska lösas och det finns flera alternativ. Om detta har Erik Bengtsson, skrivet två omfattande inlägg: Grekisk hjärngympa och uppföljande Mer om Europas kris här på bloggen.
