{"id":4779,"date":"2012-05-22T11:32:51","date_gmt":"2012-05-22T15:32:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.multiplier-effect.org\/?p=4779"},"modified":"2012-05-22T11:32:51","modified_gmt":"2012-05-22T15:32:51","slug":"can-the-eurozone-be-saved-without-treaty-changes-or-new-institutions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/multiplier-effect\/can-the-eurozone-be-saved-without-treaty-changes-or-new-institutions\/","title":{"rendered":"Can the Eurozone Be Saved without Treaty Changes or New Institutions?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yanis Varoufakis and Stuart Holland have updated their &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.levyinstitute.org\/publications\/?docid=1380\">Modest Proposal<\/a>&#8221; for overcoming the eurozone crisis (they call it <a href=\"http:\/\/varoufakis.files.wordpress.com\/2010\/11\/modest-proposal-3-0-may-2012-without-rebalancing-mechanism.pdf\">version 3.0<\/a>).\u00a0 They took on the challenge of coming up with proposals for addressing the eurozone&#8217;s tripartite crisis (sovereign debt, banking, and underinvestment) in a way that avoids any treaty changes or the creation of new EU institutions.\u00a0 So although turning the eurozone into a &#8220;United States of Europe,&#8221; with an empowered federal (which is to say EU)-level fiscal authority and a central bank willing and ready to act as a buyer of last resort for government debt might be an ideal solution, there are serious institutional and political obstacles that stand in the way.<\/p>\n<p>These are the three constraints Varoufakis and Holland accepted as fixed elements of the EU&#8217;s policymaking landscape:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>(a) The ECB will not be allowed to monetise sovereigns directly (i.e. no ECB<br \/>\nguarantees of debt issues by member-states, no ECB purchases of<br \/>\ngovernment bonds in the primary market, no ECB leveraging of the EFSF-ESM<br \/>\nin order to buy sovereign debt either from the primary or the secondary<br \/>\nmarkets)<br \/>\n(b) Surplus countries will not consent to the issue of jointly and severally<br \/>\nguaranteed Eurobonds, and deficit countries will not consent to the loss of<br \/>\nsovereignty that will be demanded on them without a properly functioning<br \/>\nFederal Europe<br \/>\n(c) Crisis resolution cannot wait for federation (e.g. the creation of a proper<br \/>\nEuropean Treasury, with the powers to tax, spend and borrow) or Treaty<br \/>\nChanges cannot, and will not, precede the Crisis\u2019 resolution.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(The <a href=\"http:\/\/varoufakis.files.wordpress.com\/2010\/11\/modest-proposal-3-0-may-2012-without-rebalancing-mechanism.pdf\">updated version<\/a> alters the third prong of their proposal, which involves using the European Investment Bank and European Investment Fund to address the growth and underinvestment crisis.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yanis Varoufakis and Stuart Holland have updated their &#8220;Modest Proposal&#8221; for overcoming the eurozone crisis (they call it version 3.0).\u00a0 They took on the challenge of coming up with proposals for addressing the eurozone&#8217;s tripartite crisis (sovereign debt, banking, and underinvestment) in a way that avoids any treaty changes or the creation of new EU [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[121,310,31,238,309,224],"class_list":["post-4779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eurozone-crisis","tag-ecb","tag-eurobonds","tag-eurozone","tag-eurozone-crisis-2","tag-modest-proposal","tag-varoufakis"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/multiplier-effect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/multiplier-effect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/multiplier-effect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/multiplier-effect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/multiplier-effect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4779"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/multiplier-effect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4795,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/multiplier-effect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4779\/revisions\/4795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/multiplier-effect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/multiplier-effect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/multiplier-effect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}