Leader_Europe continues down a rocky path

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Not for the first time we hear the two words “comprehensive solution” emanating from a European summit. Leaders must now show that they can match the grandiloquent fa?ade with the scaffolding needed to hold their crisis management strategy together.

The heads of government largely accomplished the three things on the agenda: renew their approach to the Greek problem; direct the eurozone’s rescue fund to prevent market panic engulfing other countries, notably Italy; and shore up Europe’s banking system. How they will do this is what matters.

By far the most decisive action was over Greece. A debt exchange in which Greek bondholders will take much deeper writedowns than previously proposed in return for bonds backed by European money gives Athens and the eurozone a fighting chance of persuading markets that the worst is soon over. Permanent on-the-ground surveillance, taking the place of intermittent inspections, improves the prospect of Athens’ adjustment programme coming back on track.

On the other two goals, the eurozone has yet to prove its mettle. It is good to see support for making European financial stability facility resources go further – most of all in Berlin. But the complicated structures adopted to do so, and an evident distaste for putting up any more cash, will continue to weigh on investors’ confidence.

Not so in banking, where stocks bounced when it became clear that more taxpayer money is on the way to banks that fail to attract private shareholders. Governments also put guarantees for banks’ borrowing back on the table. Investors understandably rejoice – as Irish bank creditors no doubt did when Dublin followed such policies three years ago. Meanwhile, protesters around the world will take a dim view of distrusted politicians deciding to bail out banks again.

For all the rhetoric, therefore, this was no persuasive summit; it was not the moment when crisis management was finally given the political leadership it needs. More likely than not, the burden of bold action will again fall on technocrats: Mario Draghi, the incoming European Central Bank president, or Klaus Regling, the EFSF’s head.

Yet even if politicians take their eyes off the ball at their feet, they have their sights firmly set on an ambitious horizon. Their plans to bind the eurozone’s economies and governance systems much tighter together could profoundly alter the European political landscape. But the financial crisis must first be vanquished – or it, not politicians, will determine Europe’s future.

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