Europe’s Secret Bailout
While the world worries about Donald Trump, Brexit, and refugees, the European Central Bank continues to work below the public radar on its debt-restructuring plan – also known as quantitative easing – to ease the burden on the over-indebted eurozone countries. It's a high-risk operation, especially for Germany and the Netherlands.
Subscribe to PS Digital
Access every new PS commentary, our entire On Point suite of subscriber-exclusive content – including Longer Reads, Insider Interviews, Big Picture/Big Question, and Say More – and the full PS archive.
MUNICH – While the world worries about Donald Trump, Brexit, and the flow of refugees from Syria and other war-torn countries, the European Central Bank continues to work persistently and below the public radar on its debt-restructuring plan – also known as quantitative easing (QE) – to ease the burden on over-indebted eurozone countries.
Under the ECB’s QE program, which started in March 2015 (and will likely be extended beyond its scheduled end in March 2017), eurozone members’ central banks buy private market securities for €1.74 trillion ($1.84 trillion), with more than €1.4 trillion to be used to purchase their own countries’ government debt.
The QE program seems to be symmetrical, because each central bank repurchases its own government debt in proportion to the size of the country. But it does not have a symmetrical effect, because government debt from southern European countries, where the debt binges and current-account deficits of the past occurred, are mostly repurchased abroad.
To continue reading, register now.
Subscribe now for unlimited access to everything PS has to offer.
Subscribe
As a registered user, you can enjoy more PS content every month – for free.
Register
Already have an account? Log in