Sem ilusões. Um bom resultado para a Europa.Portugal Could Be Cooking Up a Storm At the top of the euro zone's list of urgent problems is what to do about Portugal.

Sem ilusões

Por Teresa de Sousa

23/09/2013 in Público 

1. Numa coisa a chanceler tinha razão e devemos estar-lhe agradecidos: a sua espectacular votação, somada a uma ligeira recuperação do SPD, afastou um cenário de esvaziamento dos grandes partidos europeus e de crescimento das forças mais antieuropeias. Em 2009, os dois partidos registaram, somados, menos de 60% dos votos, com ganhos significativos para o Die Linke, ainda que também para os liberais e para os Verdes. Ontem, CDU/CSU e SPD voltaram a aproximar-se dos 70%. A parte de leão coube à chanceler, plebiscitada pelos alemães com uma votação que a aproxima daquelas que Adenauer e Kohl conseguiram. Se se confirmar que a Alternativa para a Alemanha, AfD, o partido antieuropeu que emergiu nos últimos meses para tentar tirar proveito da crise do euro, na entra no Bundestag, então a chanceler cumpriu uma das suas missões: impedir que um partido nacionalista nascesse à sua direita.

Mesmo que consiga a maioria absoluta, Merkel não deverá governar sozinha. A Alemanha será provavelmente governada por uma "grande coligação". O sistema político alemão foi desenhado no pós-guerra para que nenhum partido exerça sozinho o poder. Além disso, como ontem referia uma análise da Reuters, uma aliança com o SPD pode "protegê-la" do seu próprio partido, que é, em muitos aspectos, bastante mais conservador do que ela.

2. Na maioria das capitais europeias, a "grande coligação" era o cenário mais desejado. Dito isto, não vale a pena alimentar ilusões sobre o que pode mudar na estratégia alemã para resolver a crise europeia. Se houver uma "grande coligação", ela será bastante diferente da que Merkel formou para o seu primeiro mandato. Em 2005, a diferença de votos entre a CDU/CSU e o SPD foi mínima (1%). A margem de manobra de Merkel era estreita e as negociações corresponderam a uma repartição de poder muito equilibrada. Desta vez, a chanceler fez-se coroar "rainha" da Alemanha. O SPD ainda não conseguiu ultrapassar uma votação medíocre (26%), que regista desde que Schroeder decidiu que a Alemanha tinha de fazer profundas reformas para se tornar competitiva que colidiam com as regalias dos trabalhadores (a histórica base de apoio do SPD) e a generosidade do Estado social. A sua "Agenda 2010", na base da transformação da Alemanha de "homem doente da Europa" numa economia altamente competitiva, ainda não foi perdoada.
Desta vez a margem da vitória da chanceler é muito grande e a provável negociação será feita numa posição de força. Além disso, não há diferenças enormes entre a chanceler e o SPD. É verdade que os sociais-democratas foram críticos da política de austeridade e mais austeridade aplicada aos países do Sul. Mas o que defendem não é uma mudança de estratégia, apenas algum alívio na aplicação da austeridade. O SPD mostrou alguma solidariedade com a situação dramática em que se encontram países como Portugal e a Grécia. Peer Steinbrück, o candidato a chanceler, chegou a defender um Plano Marshall II para esses países. Os seus dirigentes visitaram frequentemente o Palácio do Eliseu, mostrando alguma simpatia pela insistência francesa na importância do crescimento. Quando Merkel teve dificuldade em fazer aprovar as suas decisões europeias no Bundestag, graças à "dissidência" do seu próprio partido ou às posições mais duras dos liberais, foram eles que as sustentaram. Na Alemanha houve sempre um grande consenso em torno da Europa. Não vai quebrar-se. É bom ter presente que hoje, na Europa, as diferenças políticas sobre o caminho a seguir para salvar o euro são mais entre o Norte e o Sul que entre direita e esquerda. Apenas num aspecto o SPD pode fazer alguma diferença. Vai insistir em que chegou o momento de partilhar a força da economia alemã mais irmãmente, aumentando o poder de compra dos alemães, prestando atenção à desigualdade crescente, estabelecendo um salário mínimo e propondo um programa de investimentos nas infra-estruturas hoje muito degradadas. Merkel não estará muito longe disso. Se a chanceler considerar que tem margem de manobra, então uma política económica mais expansionista pode ajudar realmente a Europa.

3. O que fará, então, Merkel com esta vitória? Ninguém espera uma revolução. Mas espera-se alguma coisa. "Nos meios governamentais de Berlim espera-se que, depois das eleições, seja possível recomeçar a negociar com Paris um grande compromisso [sobre o futuro da Europa]", escreve Chales Grant, director do Centre for European Reform de Londres. Uma carta assinada por Merkel e Hollande antes das eleições já indicava alguns avanços nesse sentido: um orçamento para a zona euro; o segundo pilar da união bancária (um mecanismo de resolução europeu em relação ao qual Berlim ainda está relutante), um presidente permanente para o Eurogrupo, centrando nele, e não na Comissão, o governo da UEM. E alguma forma de mutualização da dívida para tirar do desastre países como Portugal e a Grécia.
Merkel tem de novo o futuro da Europa nas mãos. Será este o grande desafio do seu terceiro mandato. Ontem, nem tudo correu mal na Alemanha. Pode ser que comece a correr melhor para a Europa.

Um bom resultado para a Europa

Editorial/Público
No plano do possível, o reforço de Merkel dá-lhe margem de manobra para gerir equilíbrios difíceis

Arobusta vitória eleitoral conquistada ontem por Angela Merkel não vai mudar nada quanto à crise do euro nem quanto aos riscos e ao sofrimento que esta espalhou pela Europa e por países como Portugal. No entanto, é um bom resultado para a Europa e para Portugal. No sentido em que os bons ou os maus resultados devem ser avaliados em função do que é possível e não daquilo que desejamos. E o que torna esta votação positiva para os europeus é precisamente a fortíssima votação conseguida pela chanceler. Tantas vezes demonizada no resto da Europa, Angela Merkel foi plebiscitada pelos alemães. Poderá ser a segunda líder alemã a obter uma maioria absoluta no pós-guerra. Isso significa que a chanceler travou os ânimos anti-europeus que existem dentro e fora do seu partido. E que, esses sim, representam um risco muito real para o projecto europeu. Plebiscitada, Merkel ganhou uma legitimidade indiscutível para os combater. Na noite em que festejou uma vitória que excedeu as previsões, a chanceler terá eventualmente lamentado a má sorte dos liberais, indispensáveis para repetir a coligação que governou a Alemanha desde 2009. Mas uma aliança com os sociais-democratas poderá ser mais útil a Merkel e ao complexo jogo de equilíbrios que, mal ou bem, muitas vezes de forma hesitante ou ambígua, a líder da CDU tem gerido. O pensamento do SPD sobre a Europa não é muito diferente do de Merkel. Mas com Steinbrück (mesmo negociando em posição de fraqueza), é de esperar que uma suavização das políticas de austeridade possa fazer o seu caminho e ganhar espaço de manobra no Bundestag. Nada disto resolverá o que está errado na gestão da crise europeia, que Merkel geriu sempre à beira do precipício, mas sem deixar que ninguém caísse no abismo. Mas, no plano do possível, um reforço de Merkel significa pelo menos que a Alemanha não cederá às forças centrífugas contra o euro.

Germany: the Age of Merkel

Angela Merkel has not so much clung on to power in Germany, as she did in 2009, as hugely increased her grip on it

Editorial

The Guardian, Sunday 22 September 2013 / http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/22/germany-age-of-merkel

Keep tight hold of "Mutti". That was the message from German voters on Sunday as Angela Merkel – the nation's "Mummy" to her image makers – secured a stunning personal triumph at the polls that consolidates her unchallenged claim to be the dominant political leader in modern economic-crisis-riven Europe. Since the financial crisis struck the global economy in 2008, European voters have thrown out incumbent government after incumbent government, whether of the left, the centre or the right. But Mrs Merkel and her CDU/CSU centre-right party have bucked the anti-incumbency trend not once but twice. Mrs Merkel was first elected in 2005, forming a coalition with the ousted centre-left SPD. In 2009, she hung on to power even though the CDU/CSU vote had dipped, forming a coalition with the resurgent liberal FDP. Now, four years later, she has not so much hung on to power, as she did in 2009, as hugely increased her grip on it.

Whatever the final share of the vote and seats, this election has been a massive endorsement for Mrs Merkel. The exit polls will doubtless move around a little before the final tallies of vote share and Bundestag seats are settled, and coalition options, if any, can be definitively considered. But with that important proviso, this is about as dominant a result as Mrs Merkel could have dreamed of, far better than the opinion polls were suggesting even at the end of last week. Her party seems likely to end up with 42%-43%, an increase of 10 points on four years ago, and the centre-right's best result since Helmut Kohl triumphed in the first post-reunification election in 1990.

If, as seemed possible on Sunday night, only four parties win representation in the new Bundestag by topping the 5% threshold, Mrs Merkel may even have secured an overall majority, enabling the CDU/CSU to govern alone, not in coalition, for the first time since Konrad Adenauer in 1957. Bear in mind, at the same time, that Mrs Merkel's personal popularity runs far ahead of that of her party, and it becomes clear that we are witnessing a rare moment of indubitable political ascendancy in a continent where weak governments are the norm, not least in Britain.

The centre-left Social Democrats may come out of this election as a junior coalition partner in a left-right "grand coalition" with Mrs Merkel. That would be a welcome move. They also slightly raised their share of the vote from the lamentable 23% of 2009 to 25%-26% this time. In every other respect, however, the SPD has little to celebrate. It is clear that the party's problems go deeper than just the gaffe-prone chancellor candidacy of Peer Steinbrück. The SPD's programme of increased taxes on the wealthy and the middle classes failed to capture the mood of modern Germany. There will, and should, undoubtedly be a profound period of reflection on the German centre-left about the party's failure to win much more than a quarter of the electorate. The resilience of the Green vote and that of the Left party, though both lost support while the SPD gained a little, will surely lead to speculation about realignment. All this should be watched very attentively by centre-left politicians in this country, who face many of the same problems.

The big loser in 2013 is the liberal FDP, which was on course on Sunday night to fail to cross the 5% threshold for the first time in 60 years, after winning nearly 15% four years ago. That failure is surely a verdict on the FDP's free-market programme, something that Mrs Merkel has scrupulously resisted in her own, nominally more rightwing party. It also seems clear that the growing fragmentation of party loyalties in German politics – in which the anti-eurozone-bailout AfD (Alternative für Deutschland) looked like falling just short of the threshold too – has damaged the FDP as well.

The net result, though, is unmistakable. Germans have given Mrs Merkel a strong mandate to govern Germany. But the way she uses her new power will affect not just Germany, important though that is, but the whole of Europe – and that includes us here in Britain. This is the Age of Merkel.

September 23, 2013, 5:49 a.m. ET/ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304213904579092682971288724.html?mod=WSJEUROPE_hpp_MIDDLEThirdNews

Portugal Could Be Cooking Up a Storm At the top of the euro zone's list of urgent problems is what to do about Portugal

Now that the German elections are over, the euro zone needs to get back to crisis fighting. And top of the list of urgent problems is what to do about Portugal.

By SIMON NIXON

Uniquely among crisis countries, Portugal has seen no benefit from improving sentiment toward the euro zone. Despite second-quarter growth in gross domestic product of 1.1%—the strongest in the currency bloc—Portuguese 10-year government bond yields have soared well above 7% from 5.23% in May. Last week Lisbon was warned by Standard & Poor's that its credit rating faced a possible downgrade. Before the summer, Portugal was able to issue five- and 10-year bonds. Now it is shut out of markets again.

Blame that on June's political crisis when government squabbling over the budget triggered the resignation of highly regarded Finance Minister Vitor Gaspar. For two weeks, the survival of the coalition hung in the balance as minority party leader Paulo Portas announced his "irrevocable" resignation and President Aníbal Cavaco Silva tried to force a new cross-party government of national unity.

Ultimately, the administration led by Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho re-emerged at the head of an unchanged coalition, but the damage to investor confidence has been immense. Indeed, the timing couldn't have been worse. With Portugal's three-year bailout program coming to an end and with €14 billion ($18.93 billion) of bonds maturing next year, over the coming weeks the euro zone must find a way to put Portugal's funding back on a stable footing or risk seeing the crisis reignite.

There are two ways to think about Portugal's predicament. One is to look at it as a game of multidimensional chess involving the government, the markets and the so-called troika of official lenders that comprises the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund. The object is to restore Portugal's market access while avoiding at all costs any solution that involves forcing private-sector bondholders to take losses, given damage to Portuguese banks and wider euro zone contagion.

Success hinges on a series of delicate judgments. In Portugal, the focus is on whether the troika will relax the 2014 budget deficit target agreed to in June—the issue that triggered the summer political crisis. Is this target really achievable, particularly if the Constitutional Court continues to block public-sector pay and pension cuts? How would markets react to a decision to ease austerity? What signal would relaxing the target send to other euro-zone states such as Spain and Italy? What would be the political consequences in Portugal of not relaxing the target?

For investors and the troika and the markets, the more urgent question is whether Portugal's debt load—forecast to peak this year at 124% of GDP—is sustainable. The answer depends partly on how fast one assumes the economy can grow.

The Portuguese private sector may have regained some competitiveness via job cuts and structural reforms, but can an economy that managed average growth of just 1% a year between 2000 and 2010 really return to 1.8%-a-year growth by 2016 and deliver a primary budget surplus—before interest costs—of almost 2% that year and rising thereafter to bring debt down to safer levels?

But debt sustainability also hinges on what interest rate Portugal must pay. Getting 10-year bond yields back around 5% is crucial. But what would it take to persuade markets?

Would an official backstop be sufficient, such as access to the European Central Bank's Open Market Transactions bond-buying facility, or a precautionary credit line similar to the one under discussion with Ireland as its bailout program ends? Or will investors demand that official creditors first ease the debt burden by further extending the maturity and cutting the interest rates on their loans? Would the best solution be to keep Portugal out of the markets via a new bailout program?

Of course, these are urgent questions. But if the chess players focus too intensely on Portugal's next move, they risk losing sight of the endgame. The truth is that what really matters for Portugal—and Europe—in the long-term isn't whether the deficit target is 4% or 4.5% next year, but whether Portugal will ever succeed in turning itself into a dynamic economy capable of escaping its grim history of recurring debt crises and thereby removing all doubt about its place in the euro zone.

This challenge may be greater than official figures suggest. Sure, some export industries such as textiles have restructured and performed well during the recession, helping close a 10% current-account deficit in two years. But Portugal's second- quarter growth surprise was flattered by one-off factors, including the payment of public- sector bonuses reinstated by the Constitutional Court; unemployment would be well above 17% were it not for emigration. Total factor productivity growth remains among the worst in the euro zone.

Mr. Coelho has won international respect for his determined efforts to implement the troika program and address Portugal's long-term structural problems. But those problems remain considerable—and an obstacle to much-needed investment. The public sector is still too large, too well paid relative to the private sector, too inefficient and prone to cronyism.

Root and branch reform of processes and structures is needed. Currently 40,000 budget lines require parliamentary approval; the civil justice system is a mess. The government has made it easy to start a company, but it is still very hard to close one. The labor market remains too rigid, leading companies to shed jobs rather than cut wages. Meanwhile educational standards are among the lowest in the euro zone and university attendance has recently fallen.

But is the Portuguese political establishment capable of rising to these challenges? Mr. Portas's self-serving antics this summer may have secured him promotion to deputy prime minister, but only at massive cost to Portugal's credibility. The Socialist Party incites populist opposition to policies it must know it will have to adopt in government. The Constitutional Court's egregious rulings suggest it is more interested in protecting civil-service privileges than exercising responsibility to the wider economy or fairness toward younger generations.

The risk is that the crisis is causing Portugal's elites retreat to familiar comfort zones just when they need to be embracing radical change. Viewed this way, the multidimensional chess game is the least of Portugal's problems. No doubt a way will be found to finesse the immediate financing challenge, most likely involving some official-sector debt rescheduling and a precautionary credit line. But that will only buy Portugal some more time. The question is, for what?