Ambrose Evans-Pritchard sobre Draghi

No coincido con el análisis que hace de lo anunciado por el BCE, pero A E-P aporta información muy interesesante sobre las reacciones de los anti-Draghi.

Por lo que dice, parecería que los latinos han dado un golpe de mano en el BCE, y eso no me parece verosímil. Más bien creo que había un pacto previo, que Merkel estaba sobreaviso, y que ha preferido salvar al euro, por un par de años más, a tener que lidiar con una tormenta de los mercados. No es tonta, sabe que una nueva crisis le costaría un dislate y encima podría ser definitiva.



Las reacciones de los furiosos ya estaban descontadas. No hay más que peguntarse: ¿que hubiera pasado si Draghi no cumple? los mercados hubieran empezado a escalar sus apuestas contra el euro. No lo han hecho, porque la medida les regala una puerta para liquidar activos defectuosos, y les garantiza más de un año de tranquilidad mientras enjugan pérdidas y riesgos, y mejoran la cuenta de resultados, que irá a dividendos y otros fuegos de artificio.

La furia de unos u otros es un tema político, en efecto, pero en el que hay que descontar el teatro de mostrarse furiosos unos y otros para calmar a los creyentes de unos y otros. En el fondo no saben que no mandan. Mandan los bancos, empezando por los alemanes. Y los bancos no tienen principios, lo único que no quieren es ver que el euro cae y sus posesiones se van a la mierda. Draghi ha hecho lo que ha podido: necesario pero insuficiente, y además ha dado un paso atrás, como dice Ambrose, en la fragmentación bancaria (al fijar que el BCE sólo compartirá una mínima parte de riesgo).

Una cosa me parece evidente: que el QE de Draghi no es comparable al que se hizo en EEUU y RU. ¿Es eso quizás lo óptimo? Veremos.

"The decision amounts to an act of political defiance by a majority bloc in the Governing Council - unmistakably a debtors' cartel of Latin states and like-minded states - and therefore opens an entirely new chapter of the EMU story.

This Latin revolt is to violate the sacred contract of EMU: that Germany gave up the D-Mark and bequeathed the Bundesbank's legacy to the ECB on the one condition that Germany would never be out-voted on monetary issues of critical importance.

Nor is the irritation confined to Germany. The Tweede Kamer of the Dutch parliament was up in arms today, the scene of fulminating protests from across the party spectrum. "Dutch taxpayers should not be made liable for the debts of the Italian state," said the liberal VVD party.

Mr Draghi said there was a "large majority on the need to trigger (QE) now, so large we didn't need to vote". That is an elegant way to describe a pitched battle. No doubt we will learn over coming days just how many hawks voiced their protest, and with what vehemence.

He also said that the decision to pool 20pc of the risk through collective purchases was pushed through by "consensus", the ECB's euphemistic term for disagreement. This is an uncomfortable fudge.

It is enough to irritate those in the creditor states who oppose any "fiscal transfers" through debt mutualisation. Yet at the same time, it means that 80pc of the bonds will be bought by national central banks at their own sovereign risk, entrenching the sort of "negative feedback loop" that EU leaders vowed to end in 2012. It is a step back towards fragmentation.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said in Davos that the ECB's independence must be respected. Yet she also warned that its actions must be within "reasonable bounds" and in accordance with EU law.

Mr Draghi was quick to tell us that the entire ECB Council had signed off on the principle that QE is a "true monetary policy tool in the legal sense". This gives him some defence against the coming lawsuit by eurosceptic professors in Germany's top court. Serial litigator Peter Gauweiler has already vowed to file a case.

Yet this is a thin shield. Prior rulings of the court have made it clear that scale matters. The bigger it is, the more clearly it leaks into fiscal policy and violates the budgetary prerogatives of the German parliament. This is a sensitive matter. The court has ruled that no supranational body may usurp the budgetary powers of the Bundestag, for to do so would be to rip the heart out of Germany's post-War democracy. This legal battle will drag on.

Let me be clear: I have argued for at least three years that the Latin bloc should seize control of the ECB's machinery and call the German bluff, and this is exactly what has just happened.

They have perfect right to do so. The ECB's policy has been far too tight even for Euroland as a whole. For them it has been disastrous. The slide towards deflation - and contracting nominal GDP - has caused their debt trajectories to spiral upwards even faster.

Yet nobody should have any illusions about the implications of such defiance. What is at stake is German political consent for the euro project. Bernd Lucke, the leader of the AfD anti-euro party, called today's decision an "act of desperation and the introduction of eurobonds by the back door" by the ECB.

The Bavarian Social Christians (CSU) are also furious. "With this decision, the ECB has crossed the Rubicon," said Angelika Niebler, the party's parliamentary leader. The Bavarian finance minister, Markus Soder, said: "unlimited purchases of sovereign bonds threaten to bring down the whole system."

On the Left, Die Linke lashed out at the decision, calling it a gift for insiders. It plunders the savings of the poor to make the "super-rich even richer" by driving up asset prices.

Mr Draghi may have saved Italy from a debt-deflation trap in the nick of time. He may have gained another year or two for Southern Europe to recover before radical populist parties sweep the stale elites from the political scene. But in doing so he risks losing Germany.