The speed with which the European Financial Stability Facility was put together was impressive in retrospect. Less impressive has been the way discordant politicians — European and American — have sought to continually change its mandate ever since its conception. The EFSF version 2.1 is not even ratified and agreed yet but that did not stop loose-tongued policymakers in Washington for the IMF meetings from spreading the idea of a new plan to super-size the facility to €2tr.
There is no official detail on any new bailout plan — in fact certain governments such as Germany’s are resolutely opposed to it with finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble calling it a “silly idea” — and so many important questions are unanswered. The most important of those relate to the capitalisation of banks and who ultimately is underwriting all of this.
But while an inflated EFSF might be a suitable backstop for government bonds, politicians should instead be addressing the fundamental problem in Europe — the market’s confidence in those bonds. To fix the problem the two most important things governments must achieve is reducing debt burdens and growing their economies sufficiently to convince investors that they can service those burdens. On those two issues, as austerity measures hamper growth, politicians are silent.