Commentaries

A camel for EU president?

A camel, says an old Middle East joke, is a horse designed by a committee.

The European Union is in danger of getting camels for its two new leadership positions — president of the European Council and foreign policy High Representative — because of the dysfunctional appointment process created by the Lisbon Treaty.

The secretive horse (or camel)-trading by which EU governments choose the 27-nation bloc’s top office-holders seems designed to deter strong candidates and produce lowest-common-denominator outcomes. Some of the most able potential contenders would rather stay at home than take the key jobs to Brussels.

The treaty does not provide for a democratic election because the EU is not a state, and national governments don’t want a European president with his own legitimacy. However, the rules also seem to set aside the basic principles and procedures that any private sector company or public authority would use to select the best CEO or manager.

In a normal selection process, the jobs would go to the best qualified candidates with a clear vision, relevant experience and a track record of achievement, normally after a series of rigorous interviews. But the treaty suggests that the need to share the spoils among large and small states, and countries from the north, south, east and west of Europe is more important than criteria such as ability, charisma or experience.

Should he stay or should he go? Miliband ponders

Should he stay or should he go?

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband could be Europe’s first foreign minister in all but name, with one of the most influential jobs in shaping the place of the 27-nation bloc on the world stage, if he is willing to risk leaving British politics for the next five years. That’s a big if.

Miliband is half of a “ticket” concocted by French and German diplomats to fill the two new top jobs created by the Lisbon treaty. The other half is Belgian Prime Minister Herman van Rompuy, the preferred candidate for president of the European Council. Officially, Miliband says he is ”not available” and is backing Tony Blair’s forlorn bid for the presidency. If he turns the role down, it could well to go to former Italian Prime Minister Massimo d’Alema.

The High Representative for foreign and security policy, with a big diplomatic staff, a multi-billion-euro budget and the additional position of senior vice-president of the European Commission, will arguably be more powerful than the European Council president, whose role is largely to prepare and chair quarterly summits. Miliband would bring dynamism, an incisive intellect and inspiring oratory to the job.

At 44, he is seen as the natural next leader of the Labour Party if, as expected, Gordon Brown loses the next general election. Given the average length of Britain’s political cycle since the 1980s, the centre-left party probably faces at least two parliamentary terms in opposition – roughly eight years. So Miliband would have time to burnish his international credentials in Brussels and return home before he turns 50, and before Labour has exited the political wilderness.

Another former Labour leader, Harold Wilson, famously said that a week is a long time in politics. Five years is an age. Other Labour politicians will fill the vacuum left by Miliband if he decamps to the continent. They may be less talented, but no one is likely to placidly keep the opposition leader’s seat warm until he is ready to make a triumphant comeback.

And don’t rule out smaller short-term considerations. A Miliband departure would cause an unwelcome by-election for Labour before the next general election.

Lower Opel costs to help government aid

General Motors’ decision to scrap the sale of Opel rests on the carmaker’s calculation that the hole in its European unit’s finances is not as deep as previously feared.

Governments should welcome the lower demands on taxpayers with open arms. But there is still some horse trading to be done to get everyone on board. 

GM’s chief executive Fritz Henderson is due to present his plans for Opel next week. He has good reason to be bullish.

GM’s previous forecast that Opel needs $3.3 billion to keep going until 2011 appears to have been sharply revised. Some in the industry think the amount required could be nearer 60 percent of that figure — some $2 billion.

Like other carmakers, European scrappage schemes and improved economic conditions have allowed Opel to significantly reduce its inventory. Cars that were sitting on the tarmac have been sold, putting much-needed cash back into the carmakers’ coffers.

Moreover, GM itself is doing better than originally expected in the United States since emerging from bankruptcy in July. This has given it the confidence not only to scrap the sale of Opel to a consortium led by Magna, the Canadian auto parts maker, but also to repay the remaining 900 million euros on a  bridge loan from the German government.

Earlier concerns about GM using U.S. taxpayer funds to prop up its units overseas seem to have eased. Henderson is now confident he can dip into GM’s U.S. pocket to shore up Opel.

Turkey’s EU bid fades with little drama

Turkey’s bid to join the European Union is fading away with surprisingly little drama because investors no longer see the prospect of accession as an essential policy anchor.

But EU leaders should keep Ankara’s entry negotiations alive on the back burner rather than trying to engage Ankara on alternatives to membership, as French President Nicolas Sarkozy would like to do.

In a version of the old Soviet workers’ joke, “they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work,” the buzz on Turkey in the European Commission’s enlargement department is, “they pretend they’re reforming and we pretend we want them”. (more…)

The EC bank smackdown

Dexia and ING’s recent decisions to call some of their subordinated debt has puzzled market observers, as they seem to fly in the face of the European Commission and its crusade on burden-sharing for banks that have received state aid.

The Commission wants junior creditors of bailed-out banks to share some of the pain along with the public sector, and wants to make sure public funds aren’t used to repay equity or junior debt if a bank can’t. Holders of some of RBS’ subordinated debt recently found this out to their horror when the bank chose not to call the bonds at the first opportunity. The Dexia and ING bondholders, by contrast, will have had a nice pay day. The Dexia upper tier 2 bond was trading below par in the mid 70s area, according to CreditSights.

It looks like the EC wasn’t too pleased with Dexia and ING’s generosity, as last night it issued a stiff press release reminding banks of its rules. That’s not good news for any bondholders who had been hoping that the Dexia and ING calls may have signalled a thawing in the EC’s stance.

Here’s the EC statement:

State aid: Commission recalls rules concerning Tier 1 and Tier 2 capital transactions for banks subject to a restructuring aid investigation

Following questions from market operators regarding the possibility  for banks which are the subject of pending European Commission investigations regarding the grant of restructuring aid to repay bonds before maturity, the Commission would like to recall that its Communication on restructuring aid to financial institutions of July 2009 (see IP/09/1180 and MEMO/09/350) sets out that “banks should not use state aid to remunerate own funds (equity and subordinated debt) when their activities do not generate sufficient profits”. In a restructuring context, measures which reduce the total amount of own funds (payments on hybrid instruments, avoidance of loss absorption, buy-backs, exercise of call options) are in principle not compatible with the objective of “burden sharing” (i.e. banks must pay a significant share of the costs of restructuring) and the “minimum necessary” requirement (i.e. the amount of state aid must not exceed the minimum necessary to allow the bank to restructure). For that reason, banks subject to a state aid investigation should consult the Commission before making announcements to the market concerning Tier 1 and Tier 2 capital transactions.

Transactions such as coupon payments, buy-backs and the exercise of call-options of Tier 1 and Tier 2 capital instruments reduce the total regulatory capital of a financial institution and put into question whether granted state resources were limited to the minimum necessary. Moreover, such measures may infringe the principle of burden sharing in so far as they protect the Tier 1 and Tier 2 capital holders from their exposure to the inherent risk of the investment.

Such transactions by financial institutions subject to restructuring obligations may therefore have implications for the compatibility of the aid received. On the other hand, the Commission may accept these transactions on the basis of a case by case assessment, after balancing the above mentioned principles of burden sharing and limiting aid to the minimum against the contribution of the transaction to the refinancing capability and return to viability of the institution. For that reason, banks subject to a state aid investigation should consult the Commission before making announcements to the market concerning Tier 1 and Tier 2 capital transactions.

The EC bank debt riddle

The European Commission seems to enjoy messing with bankers’ and investors’ heads in its crusade against subordinated bank debt.

Earlier this year the EC roiled markets by insisting holders of bank subordinated debt securities should suffer along with the taxpayer for bailouts. It stopped RBS from calling some tier 2 bonds, and also cracked down on KBC.

But now, the sphinxlike Commission has allowed both Dexia and ING – both recipients of state-aid – to call some tier 2 bonds at the first opportunity, giving bopndholders a nice payday.

Is the EC mellowing? Perhaps. Here is the somewhat exasperated comment from analysts at BNP Paribas :

Our job is already hard enough trying to second guess governments and the EC, without having to deal on top of it with actions that do not seem comprehensible. We think that the picture on EC intervention in call approvals is blurry, but that the recent call approvals by Dexia and ING are encouraging for other banks, even for RBS.

Sarkozy looks to stash some cash under the mattress

On the face of it, France’s 2010 budget is just what the G20 doctor ordered. No early withdrawal of economic stimulus spending. Allowing the welfare system’s ”automatic stabilisers” to absorb the shock of the economic crisis. No raising of taxes or slashing of public spending until growth returns. A small shift away from tax on business towards taxation of carbon.

Of course the headline numbers are horrible and under normal circumstances would prompt disciplinary action by the European Union. The 8.5 percent forecast public deficit will be the highest in French history. Public debt will rise from 77.1 percent of GDP this year to 91 percent in 2013. The EU ceilings are a deficit of 3 percent and debt of 60 percent of GDP. But compared to Britain, Spain or Ireland, France’s deficit will look almost modest.

French governments traditionally make rosy growth assumptions at budget time, enabling them to forecast a deficit which often turns out to be bigger than planned. The European Commission then queries the growth assumption, leading to months of haggling between Paris and Brussels.

The novelty this year is that President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government has assumed lower 2010 growth (0.75 percent) than most private economists forecast. The consensus of private forecasts submitted to the government with the budget is for 1.1 percent growth next year. Some expect as much as 1.5 percent growth. If the more optimistic figures are right, Sarkozy will have a stash of cash under the mattress which he could spend to help win next year’s regional elections, for example by helping out angry milk producers, or use to cushion the impact of inevitable deficit cuts in 2011 — the year before he seeks re-election.

That might not reassure European officials, who fear Sarkozy will make no serious deficit cuts until after the 2012 presidential election. But it would be smart politics.

Germans vote for change; will they get it?

Germans have voted for change. A centre-right government with a clear parliamentary majority will replace the ungainly grand coalition of conservatives and Social Democrats that ran Europe’s biggest economy for the last four years.

This should mean an end to ”steady as she goes” lowest common denominator policies, and at least some reform of the country’s tax and welfare system. The liberal Free Democrats, who recorded their best ever result with around 14.7 percent, will try to pull the new government towards tax cuts, health care reform, a reduction in welfare spending and a loosening of job protection in small business.

Conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel, a cautious centrist, made clear in her first post-election comments that she she would not allow a radical lurch to the right. She promised to be the ”chancellor of all Germans” — old and young, entrepreneurs and workers — and said the conseravtives would be sufficiently dominant in the new coalition to prevail “in questions that affect social balance”.

The new government faces tough economic challenges in what is bound to be a more polarised political atmosphere, with the Social Democrats in opposition. The economy is expected to contract by at least 5 percent this year, and export-led growth is likely to return only slowly. Unemployment is set to explode in the coming months as short-time work schemes run out. The budget deficit is set to top 6 percent of gross domestic product next year, more than twice the EU limit. So 2010 will be an extremely difficult year. But there are some problems that are even more urgent.

The first big choice involves Germany’s ailing banks. Outgoing Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck admitted last week that the public-owned regional Landesbanks “continue to pose an enormous systemic risk to our market”. The outgoing parliament passed a virtually useless “bad bank” law meant to encourage stricken financial institutions to put their toxic assets into state-guaranteed special purpose vehicles. The banks have so far spurned the system because it leaves the risk of losses with them rather than with the taxpayer.

Merkel and her new partners need to amend the law so that the state takes more of the risk, otherwise Germany faces a future of “zombie” banks that are too burdened with liabilities to lend to the real economy. That won’t be popular, with the left bound to claim that taxpayers are being forced to bail out wealthy bankers.

Fixing the banks is more urgent than cutting taxes or curbing public spending to revive the economy. That also means merging the Landesbanks, shrinking their activities and privatising as much as possible. The Germans must also be ready to allow healthy foreign banks to buy up sickly German ones. That is the logic of the European single market, to which a centre-right government is likely to be more committed.

Germany will have to change Opel deal after election

It looks increasingly clear that Germany will have to change its deal to aid carmaker Opel once Sunday’s general election is out of the way.

The European Commission has signaled to Berlin that promising 4.5 billion euros in loan guarantees to only one of the two bidders for General Motors’ European arm to preserve all four German production sites and most Opel jobs in Germany may breach EU rules on state aid to industry. EU regulators want to know why Chancellor Angela Merkel and four German states offered the money to back car parts maker Magna’s bid but not for financial investor RHJ International’s, and on what conditions. 

With Britain, Spain and Belgium’s Flanders region — all hosts to Opel production sites – crying foul, the EU executive is under strong political pressure to intervene. British Business Secretary Peter Mandelson has questioned the viability of Magna’s business plan in a letter to the Commission.  Brussels reaffirmed in a statement on Wednesday that Germany could not attach political conditions to the company’s restructuring plan or tie its hands. 

The European Commission will not accept that State aid granted under the Temporary Framework is conditional upon the implementation of a specific business plan, previously discussed and/or negotiated with Member States, which defines the geographic distribution of restructuring measures, without leaving to the beneficiary undertakings the possibility to revise their plans if necessary.

State funding under the Temporary Framework is meant to tackle the financing problems due to the credit crunch, and cannot be used to impose political constraints concerning the location of production activities within the internal market. The beneficiary undertakings must therefore retain full freedom to develop their economic activities in the internal market.

Even the Commission’s German vice-president, Guenter Verheugen, long regarded as the German car industry’s best friend, has told his countrymen that one EU country cannot be allowed to buy a favourable solution for its workers at the expense of another. He has offered the Commission’s help to bring all the Opel host countries together and work out a joint state aid plan for Opel to be monitored by Brussels.

In theory, that means Berlin ought to sign Magna and its Russian partner Sberbank a blank cheque which might lead to a plant in Antwerp or Luton or Zaragoza being kept open instead of an assembly line in Bochum, if the Belgian, British or Spanish site is more efficient. That would be hard for German taxpayers to swallow.

Push comes to shove in EU-Dutch bank spat

Push is coming to shove in a stand-off between the European Commission and the Dutch government over the future of state-rescued banks. The outcome has implications for the whole of Europe.

Markets should watch Brussels’ actions on ING, ABN AMRO and Fortis Bank Nederland carefully because they will set a precedent for forthcoming decisions about British, German or Irish banks that could reshape the European banking landscape. They may also determine whether, and when, taxpayers can expect to recover their investments in the banking sector.

EU competition czar Neelie Kroes this week withheld approval of a government guarantee for the bulk of a 28 billion euro portfolio of ING bad loans. The European regulator, whose job is to ensure state aid does not distort competition, said the guarantee required further investigation because the Dutch government may have illegally subsidised the bank by overvaluing the assets.

Compounding the Dutch problems, Deutsche Bank has pulled out of a deal to buy some of the operations of ABN AMRO, the Dutch lender. Brussels had originally ordered the sale when it allowed Fortis to buy ABN AMRO’s Dutch retail banking operations in 2007. Though Fortis has since been broken up, the Dutch government still wants to merge the two retail banks, both of which are now under state control.

The initially proposed deal would have left the Dutch taxpayer with a potential 300 million euro loss on the assets, which include commercial bank HBU. The government may yet reach a compromise with Deutsche or be able to sell other Fortis or ABN assets to meet the Commission’s conditions.

Nevertheless, the issues at stake between Kroes and her countrymen are broadly the same as those with Britain, Ireland or Germany.

The Commission aims to maintain a level playing field by making state-aided banks shrink their balance sheets by spinning off or winding up activities. This is designed to compensate  healthy banks for the distortion of competition with taxpayers’ money. Brussels also seeks to ensure that bailed-out firms have a viable future without public funds. And it aims to ensure adequate consumer choice by averting excessive concentration and promoting vigorous domestic and cross-border competition.