MacroScope

It looks like a week short of blockbusters, particularly today with much of Europe on holiday. But there will be plenty to chew over over the next few days on the state of the euro zone and whether newly-printed central bank money lapping round the world risks throwing things off kilter.

Flash PMIs for the euro zone, Germany and France for May, plus the German Ifo index, follow first quarter GDP data which showed Europe’s largest economy just about eked out some growth but nobody else in the currency bloc did. That trend is likely to be reaffirmed with the harsh winter, having curbed German activity in Q1, allowing for a rebound in sectors like construction in Q2. France and the rest of the pack are unlikely to be so lucky.

For the markets, this leaves all sorts of assets in demand since if the economy worsens, central bank largesse will stay in place for longer and could be enhanced and if recovery finally shows up, well then that’s good for stock markets at least. The only real losers so far have been in the commodities and energy arena. The 500-pound gorilla in the room is how the world economy will cope when the big central banks finally halt and even start to reverse their extraordinary stimulus policies but that looks like a question for 2014 at the earliest. Interestingly, both the IMF and Bank for International Settlements issued warnings about this on the same day.

Ten months after his pledge to save the euro fundamentally changed the dynamics of the currency bloc’s debt crisis, European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi returns to the scene of the crime (I know, that’s the wrong word for all but the hardest hardliners) – London – to deliver a keynote speech. Draghi has said the ECB is prepared to act further if the economy worsens, having already cut interest rates to a fresh record low this month. But what?

Its bond-buying plans are dormant because no country needs the help at the moment and there is no talk of a repeat of last year’s 1 trillion euro splurge of cheap long-term liquidity to banks. There is talk of cutting the deposit rate – the rate banks get for parking funds at the ECB – into negative territory to try and get them to lend. But will that do much? Despite being in a world awash with central bank money and stock markets in the ascendant, the fact that safe haven bond markets such as Bunds and U.S. Treasuries haven’t sold off much denotes ongoing nervousness among banks and investors. And why would banks lend to pesky, problematic companies when there seem to be bumper returns to be had in the markets?

Spanish government bonds have had a good run since the European Central Bank said it would protect the euro last year. But some analysts say the threat of a rating downgrade to junk remains an important risk.

Credit default swap prices are discounting such a move, according to Markit. Spain is only one notch above junk according to Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s ratings, and two notches above junk for Fitch. All three have it on negative outlook.  Bank of America-Merrill Lynch says it sees a “high probability” of a sovereign rating downgrade in the second half of the year.

As the table above shows, a cut to sub-investment grade would prompt Spanish sovereign debt to fall out of certain indices tracked by bond funds, resulting in forced selling, which could drive Spanish borrowing costs higher.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy meets labour union and business leaders to discuss reforms to pensions and public institutions. After some fairly brutal cutting, Rajoy has grown more cautious. He is negotiating a new formula for calculating pension payoffs but is wary of going further for fear of sparking greater protest. And all the time, recession put the country’s debt targets further out of reach.

There’s still some pretty serious stuff on the table. Rajoy’s cabinet has proposed a “stability factor” for the pension system, which would periodically adjust pay-outs and retirement age based on economic performance, demographics and other factors. The government is also studying a major reform to public administrations that could mean numerous job cuts in the public sector at a time when unemployment is at 27 percent.

The EU has granted France, Spain and others more time to meet their deficit targets in an attempt to foster some growth. But it is also insistent the pace of structural reforms must be stepped up. The French parliament voted through labour reforms on Tuesday which will make hiring and firing somewhat easier. President Francois Hollande will hold a rare news conference having travelled to Brussels yesterday to declare he would use the leeway to boost competitiveness and growth. Details? There were none. The European Commission will spell out its recommendations at the end of the month.

Evidence that Europe’s austerity policies are not working was in ample supply this morning. The euro zone as a whole is now in its longest recession since the start of monetary union. France has succumbed to the region’s retrenchment. Italy’s GDP slump is now the lengthiest on record. And Greece, still in depression, shrank another 5.3 percent in the first quarter.

To understand why this is happening, Brown University professor Mark Blyth says it is necessary to forget everything you think you know about the euro zone crisis. The monetary union’s troubles are not, as often depicted, the result of runaway spending by bloated, profligate states that are finally being forced to pay the piper. Instead, argues Blyth, it is merely a sequel to the U.S. financial meltdown that started, like its American counterpart, with dangerously-indebted risk-taking on the part of a super-sized banking sector.

In a new book entitled “Austerity: The history of a dangerous idea,” Blythe writes that sovereign budgets have come under strain primarily because taxpayers of various nations have been forced to shoulder the burden of failed banking systems.

Britain’s David Cameron began the day on Monday gently slapping down two Cabinet colleagues who said if they had a vote today, they would opt to leave the EU. It was senseless, he said, to throw in the towel before he had had a chance to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with Europe. He ended it by caving into rebels in his Conservative party who are demanding legislation now to commit to an in/out referendum before the next election.

The 25 year history of the Conservatives and Europe – internecine warfare and successive election defeats as they obsessed about something which figures low on most Britons’ priority list – suggests no good can come of this and if Cameron wins the 2015 election it moves Britain incrementally closer to the EU exit door. The more immediate question is whether Cameron has lanced the boil. Again, history suggests that if you give ground to the eurosceptics they merely demand more. And what the PM’s pro-EU Liberal Democrat coalition partners make of this isn’t hard to imagine which means he might not even have the numbers to get the bill through parliament. One of the leading rebels seized on that point, saying the move could well fail.

The anti-EU fringe party UKIP, which could well not win a single seat at the next election but has seriously spooked the Conservatives with strong showings in recent local elections, must be laughing all the way to the bank. If it can remake the Conservative party in its own image, its job will be done. But just as likely is a split party. The irony of Cameron doing all this while in Washington to bang the drum for an EU/U.S. trade deal is hard to ignore. President Obama pointedly said the British premier should fix its relationship with the EU.  If Cameron believes Britain should remain part of its main trading bloc, as he says he does, he is going to have to start explaining why and that is difficult to imagine.

“What did he mean by that?” 19th century Austrian diplomat Metternich is said to have asked of  Talleyrand when he heard the French statesman had died. The euro zone crisis, and the response of its leaders, has often required the same question to be asked.

There were some carefully chosen words from Germany yesterday with Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble saying that elements of a banking union would have to be pursued without lengthy and arduous treaty change, something he’d previously said would be necessary.

Now you could view this as a sign of softening opposition, certainly the French read it that way. However, the subtext could just as easily be that because treaty change takes too long, Berlin will pursue only those elements of banking union that don’t require it – i.e. bloc-wide regulation yes, but forget about a bank resolution mechanism let alone a joint deposit guarantee. That would be a pale imitation of what was proposed nearly a year ago and wouldn’t provide the sort of structure that would foster confidence that a future financial crisis could be contained.

European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi felt it necessary yesterday to depart from the script at a ceremony awarding an honorary degree to reiterate his message from last Thursday – that the ECB could cut interest rates again and was looking at pushing the deposit rate which it charges banks for holding their funds overnight into negative territory in an attempt to get them to lend again.

Nothing new in the message obviously but the fact he felt the need to repeat it at a forum at which nobody would expect him to could be telling. Draghi has form here. It was at a pre-Olympics conference in London last July that he delivered his “whatever it takes” to save the euro pledge that fundamentally shifted the terms of the currency bloc’s debt crisis.

That the recession-plagued euro zone economy could do with a shot in the arm is beyond question though Draghi insisted countries must not let up on their debt-cutting. Very different tone from the prime ministers of Italy and Spain who demanded action to cut unemployment though Italy’s Enrico Letta said growth could be boosted without increasing debt.

It’s European Central Bank day and we have it on very good authority that a quarter-point interest rate cut is on the cards, which will take rates to a record low 0.5 percent. A plunge in euro zone inflation to 1.2 percent, way below the target of close to but below 2 percent, has cemented the case for action.

In terms of reviving the euro zone economy this is pea shooter and elephant territory. The ECB has consistently diagnosed the key problem that already ultra-low interest rates are not transmitted to high debt corners of the euro zone, where lending rates are much higher and credit restricted. A rate cut won’t change that. It also illuminates the gulf in approach with the Bank of Japan and Federal Reserve who continue to print money at a furious rate.

The Fed said on Wednesday it would continue buying $85 billion in bonds with new money each month and added it would step up purchases if needed to protect the economy, dousing recent suggestions that the programme could be wound up in the months ahead. Nonetheless, a euro rate cut will help at the margins.

It’s May Day and most of Europe, barring Britain, is taking a holiday so maybe it’s a day to take stock.

But first, a nervous glance at little Slovenia. Last night Moody’s cut its debt rating to junk, forcing Ljubljana to abandon a planned bond issue which looked set to raise several billion dollars and making a fifth euro zone sovereign bailout much more likely. Given the ham-fisted effort to rescue Cyprus didn’t put markets into a spin, it’s unlikely Slovenia will upset the euro zone applecart but it’s a reminder that this crisis isn’t over and won’t be until the currency bloc gets serious about creating a banking union. Slovenia’s problems, like Cyprus’s, are rooted in the banking sector, which is stifled by about 7 billion euros in bad loans.

One bullet was dodged when the Cypriot parliament narrowly approved its bailout late yesterday, which will avert bankruptcy but at a painful cost.

Fresh from winning a vote of confidence in parliament, new Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta heads to Berlin to meet Angela Merkel, pledging to shift the euro zone’s focus on austerity in favour of a drive to create jobs. He may be pushing at a partially open door. Even the German economy is struggling at the moment and the top brass in Brussels have declared either that debt-cutting has reached its limits and/or that now is the time to exercise flexibility. Letta will move on from Berlin to Brussels and Paris later in the week.

France, Spain and others will next month be given more time to meet their deficit targets and Berlin does not seem to object. Don’t expect Merkel to join the anti-austerity chorus but there are some hints of a shift even in Europe’s paymaster. Yesterday, it launched a bilateral plan with Spain to boost lending to smaller companies and said it could be rolled out elsewhere too. Details were very sketchy but something may be afoot. The European Central Bank, expected to cut interest rates on Thursday, is considering something similar although that is far from a done deal.

Forgotten about Cyprus, which only last month had financial markets in a lather and threatened to reignite the euro zone debt crisis? Today, Cypriot politicians vote on the terms of the bailout offered by the euro zone. It should pass but it could be tight. No single party has a majority in the 56-member parliament, and the government is counting on support from members of its three party centre-right coalition which have 30 seats in total.