Report
Patrick Artus

Debt monetisation and mutualisation or monetisation and mutualisation with solidarity?

This question concerns both the ECB and the European Commission (or the EIB or the ESM): When the ECB uses quantitative easing, it buys the countries’ bonds in proportion to their share in the ECB’s capital key : it helps all countries finance themselves in a homogeneous manner. This is monetisation but without solidarity. In contrast, when the ECB uses the PEPP, its new purchase programme, it can freely buy the countries’ bonds without any proportionality constraint : it can therefore disproportionately help struggling countries finance themselves, in which case we have monetisation with solidarity; If the European Investment Bank, the European Stability Mechanism or the European Union issue European bonds which are allocated between the countries according to fixed weighting s (which is the case with the ESM after recent decisions), we have debt mutualisation but without solidarity. I n contrast, i f there were European issuance (which would de facto be a eurobond ), and if a larger share of this issuance could be allocated to the countries in the most difficulty, we would have mutualisation with solidarity. It is only if there is both monetisation with solidarity and mutualisation with solidarity that the euro zone will be able to avert: A widening of peripheral sovereign spreads; S timulus packages being insufficient in the peripheral countries.
Provider
Natixis
Natixis

Based across the world’s leading financial centers, Natixis CIB Research offers an integrated view of the markets. The team provides support to inform Natixis clients’ investment and hedging decisions across all asset classes.

 

Analysts
Patrick Artus

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