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(单词翻译)
greece and the euro
Crisis revisited
The euro is still vulnerable, and Greece is not the only problem
IT WAS almost exactly five years ago that the euro crisis erupted, starting in Greece. Investors1 who had complacently2 let all euro-zone countries borrow at uniformly low levels abruptly3 woke up to the riskiness4 of an incompetent5 government borrowing money in a currency which it could not depreciate6. There is thus a dismal7 symmetry in seeing the euro crisis flare8 up again in the place where it began.
The proximate cause of the latest outbreak of nerves was the decision by the Greek government, now headed by the generally competent Antonis Samaras, to advance the presidential election to later this month. The presidency9 is largely ceremonial, but if Mr Samaras cannot win enough votes in parliament for his candidate, Stavros Dimas, a general election will follow. Polls suggest the winner would be Syriza, a populist party led by Alexis Tsipras. Although Mr Tsipras professes10 that he does not want to leave the euro, he is making promises to voters on public spending and taxes that may make it hard for Greece to stay. Hence the markets' sudden pessimism11.
As it happens, there is a good chance that Mr Dimas, a former EU commissioner12, will win the presidential vote at the end of this month (see article). But the latest Aegean tragicomedy is a timely reminder13 both of how unreformed the euro zone still is and of the dangers lurking14 in its politics.
It is true that, ever since the pledge by the European Central Bank's president, Mario Draghi in July 2012 to “do whatever it takes” to save the euro, fears that the single currency might break up have dissipated. Much has been done to repair the euro's architecture, ranging from the establishment of a bail-out fund to the start of a banking15 union. And economic growth across the euro zone is slowly returning, however anaemically, even to Greece and other bailed-out countries.
But is that good enough? Even if the immediate16 threat of break-up has receded17, the longer-term threat to the single currency has, if anything, increased. The euro zone seems to be trapped in a cycle of slow growth, high unemployment and dangerously low inflation. Mr Draghi would like to respond to this with full-blown quantitative18 easing, but he is running into fierce opposition19 from German and other like-minded ECB council members (see article). Fiscal20 expansion is similarly blocked by Germany's unyielding insistence21 on strict budgetary discipline. And forcing structural22 reforms through the two sickliest core euro countries, Italy and France, remains23 an agonisingly slow business.
Japan is reckoned to have had two “lost decades”; but in the past 20 years it grew by almost 0.9% a year. The euro zone, whose economy has not grown since the crisis, is showing no sign of dragging itself out of its slump24. And Japan's political set-up is far more manageable than Europe's. It is a single political entity25 with a cohesive26 society; the euro zone consists of 18 separate countries, each with a different political landscape. It is hard to imagine it living through a decade even more dismal than Japan's without some political upheaval27.
Greece is hardly alone in having angry voters. Portugal and Spain both have elections next year, in which parties that are fiercely against excessive austerity are likely to do well. In Italy three of the four biggest parties, Forza Italia, the Northern League and Beppe Grillo's Five Star movement, are turning against euro membership. France's anti-European National Front continues to climb in the opinion polls. Even Germany has a rising populist party that is against the euro.
It's the politics, stupid
Indeed, the political risks to the euro may be greater now than they were at the height of the euro crisis in 2011-12. What was striking then was that large majorities of ordinary voters preferred to stick with the single currency despite the austerity imposed by the conditions of their bail-outs, because they feared that any alternative would be even more painful. Now that the economies of Europe seem a little more stable, the risks of walking away from the single currency may also seem smaller.
Alexis de Tocqueville once observed that the most dangerous moment for a bad government was when it began to reform. Unless it can find some way to boost growth soon, the euro zone could yet bear out his dictum.
1 investors | |
n.投资者,出资者( investor的名词复数 ) | |
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2 complacently | |
adv. 满足地, 自满地, 沾沾自喜地 | |
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3 abruptly | |
adv.突然地,出其不意地 | |
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4 riskiness | |
n.风险性 | |
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5 incompetent | |
adj.无能力的,不能胜任的 | |
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6 depreciate | |
v.降价,贬值,折旧 | |
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7 dismal | |
adj.阴沉的,凄凉的,令人忧郁的,差劲的 | |
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8 flare | |
v.闪耀,闪烁;n.潮红;突发 | |
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9 presidency | |
n.总统(校长,总经理)的职位(任期) | |
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10 professes | |
声称( profess的第三人称单数 ); 宣称; 公开表明; 信奉 | |
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11 pessimism | |
n.悲观者,悲观主义者,厌世者 | |
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12 commissioner | |
n.(政府厅、局、处等部门)专员,长官,委员 | |
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13 reminder | |
n.提醒物,纪念品;暗示,提示 | |
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14 lurking | |
潜在 | |
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15 banking | |
n.银行业,银行学,金融业 | |
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16 immediate | |
adj.立即的;直接的,最接近的;紧靠的 | |
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17 receded | |
v.逐渐远离( recede的过去式和过去分词 );向后倾斜;自原处后退或避开别人的注视;尤指问题 | |
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18 quantitative | |
adj.数量的,定量的 | |
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19 opposition | |
n.反对,敌对 | |
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20 fiscal | |
adj.财政的,会计的,国库的,国库岁入的 | |
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21 insistence | |
n.坚持;强调;坚决主张 | |
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22 structural | |
adj.构造的,组织的,建筑(用)的 | |
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23 remains | |
n.剩余物,残留物;遗体,遗迹 | |
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24 slump | |
n.暴跌,意气消沉,(土地)下沉;vi.猛然掉落,坍塌,大幅度下跌 | |
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25 entity | |
n.实体,独立存在体,实际存在物 | |
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26 cohesive | |
adj.有粘着力的;有结合力的;凝聚性的 | |
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27 upheaval | |
n.胀起,(地壳)的隆起;剧变,动乱 | |
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