Andreas Dombret, former board member of the Deutsche Bundesbank, analyzes alongside the technologist Wessel Janse van Rensburg the possible consequences of the newly implemented Genius Act for the global financial system. Their op-ed has been originally published at Reaction Digital Media Ltd.

By Andreas Dombret and Wessel Janse van Rensburg

President Trump’s signing of the GENIUS Stablecoin Act marks a chapter in an ancient storyline—the eternal tension between progress and order. Pandora’s jar—mistranslated as a box—came with strict instructions never to open it. Stablecoins also arrive with promises and prohibitions.

The warnings are mounting about the Pandora’s box of problems that stablecoins will unleash. The economist Barry Eichengreen, one of the leading experts on the history and development of money, invokes the spectre of coins slipping their pegs to the dollar—as happened in 2022—and recalls the chaos of the free-banking era, when dozens of regulatory systems produced banknotes trading at wildly different prices. Yet this is perhaps the least urgent danger lurking inside.

It is likely that only a few stablecoins will dominate. Despite piggybacking on the dollar and often sharing the same blockchain, out of the box their smart contracts remain stubbornly non-interoperable and therefore non-fungible.

[related]Each coin is a brand—and combined with the network effects inherent in money itself, winner-takes-all dynamics emerge. Already, two giants rule: Tether commands a $159 billion market capitalisation – 61% of the market – while Circle’s USD Coin holds $62 billion or 24%.

Say what you will about the banking system, but it resists the extreme concentration that defines Big Tech. In spite of years of consolidation, the US still has more than 4,000 banks. Europe has more. That is because, up to now, banks have made a business of a private means of payment but to an open public standard. The result is a monetary commons—a seamless blend of commercial and central bank money that, in normal times, the public can’t distinguish between.

The irony is that stablecoins depend on the very openness they seek to enclose. As Rohan Grey, a law professor at Willamette, puts it: the stablecoin trilemma makes it impossible to create coins that are simultaneously stable, denominated in a public unit of account, and free from reliance on public collateral.

This reliance on public collateral is where the real monsters escape Pandora’s jar. A Bank for International Settlements (BIS) study finds that even moderate stablecoin inflows lower three-month Treasury yields by 2-2.5 basis points within ten days. No wonder Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent welcomes this effect, hoping a flourishing dollar stablecoin market will cheapen escalating government borrowing.

But the effects cut asymmetrically: according to the BIS stablecoin outflows raise yields by 6-8 basis points—two to three times more than inflows lower them. It is easy to paint a scenario where the impact could be much greater, if for instance there was a repeat of the May 2022 crash in the stablecoin market.

There are other dangers. Short-term Treasury yields are the Fed’s key transmission channel for controlling money-market rates. Stablecoin treasuries already rival major US money-market funds as T-bill buyers. If the sector explodes ten-fold to $2 trillion by 2028—as suggested by the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee, the expert panel that advises on government debt issuance—it could seriously disrupt Fed monetary policy transmission. Worse, it raises the risk of fire-sales in the very market global regulators already consider dangerously brittle.

Then there is the impact of dollar stablecoins on monetary systems beyond the dollar. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says this “groundbreaking technology will buttress the dollar’s status as the global reserve currency”. In league with Silicon Valley and stablecoin issuers, the US administration is offering hope to consumers trapped by weak currencies and inflation. Yet this gift comes with Pandora’s curse. Foreign users import not just dollars but the full weight of US monetary policy and regulatory whim. Widespread adoption will hollow out local monetary systems and strip central banks of their tools—spreading the very instability it promises to tame.

The irony is, of course, that in seeking to extend dollar hegemony through stablecoins, the US may unleash forces that undermine it. Unlike the offshore Eurodollar system—where correspondent banking gives the US chokepoints for sanctions and anti-money-laundering enforcement—stablecoins open new escape routes from these very controls.

Centralised stablecoins like Tether and Circle can perform KYC checks at issuance and redemption. They can freeze wallets, burn tokens, and mint new ones as replacement. Yet once issued, tokens can flow freely to self-custody wallets or vanish via other techniques, severing links to their original identity.

However, the greatest misery escaping the stablecoin jar is that stablecoins betray the essence of money itself: credit. Where bank credit swells and contracts with the economy’s pulse, a stablecoin is frozen at birth, its entire value prepaid. It cannot spin promises into purchasing power, as banks do with overdrafts, mortgages, and working-capital lines. Stablecoins remain forever rigid, unable to respond to economic need.

If households and firms park liquidity in stablecoins rather than bank deposits, banks lose a cheap funding base and must trim loan books or raise lending spreads. The money multiplier shrinks, dampening investment and GDP growth—especially in credit-intensive sectors such as construction and bank-dependent SMEs. The net effect? A more pro-cyclical real economy in which credit contracts faster and recovers more slowly.

Of course the technology that underlies stablecoins, unified ledgers, does carry a tantalising promise: running money on unified or interlocking ledgers can offer genuine advantages, eliminating the need for layers of trusted intermediaries in many transactions. This can significantly reduce the cost of international payments. Through its programmability, smart contracts could replace escrow services and collateral requirements.

Perhaps most important, tokenisation could unlock liquidity in frozen assets. Private equity or property funds, for instance, could be sliced into affordable tokens. Smart contracts could automate the securitisation chain, while tokens stream real-time data on borrower repayments directly to investors—cutting out the middlemen.

The current debate is confused by framing it as a simplistic choice between new technology and the status quo, rather than how to best apply the advantages of unified ledgers and the tokenisation they make possible to a powerful but delicate system, credit money, whose mechanics are well understood.

The tool is neutral; the risk lies in how we apply it. Exploring how to apply these advantages is where policymakers should be focusing their attention.

Programmable ledgers can streamline escrow, fractionalise real-estate, and improve market plumbing without being tied to fully reserved private money. Those functions can sit in tokenised bank deposits that expand with credit needs, alongside tokenised central-bank reserves that anchor stability.

Acting on this simple realisation will address the evils that could escape the stablecoin jar. Knowledge rarely kills but hubris about how it is deployed does.

Andreas Dombret, formerly on the Deutsche Bundesbank board and the supervisory board of the ECB, is an Adjunct Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University. Moreover, he is the Chairman of the Atlantik-Brücke Foundation and a former board member of the Atlantik-Brücke.

Wessel Janse van Rensburg, is a technologist, former lawyer and co-founder of e-commerce start-up Miista.

Der Beitrag Why stablecoins are Silicon Valley’s Pandora’s box erschien zuerst auf Atlantik-Brücke e.V..

Meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in Washington DC are traditionally a chance for the world’s finance ministers and leading central bankers to discuss how best to co-operate on the pressing issues of the day. This month’s gathering will be very different.

[related]Underlying the discussions about the state of the world economy and the global financial system will be an unspoken fear about what the Trump administration intends for these two critical Bretton Woods institutions. As the US abandons multilateralism, will the World Bank and IMF become two more negotiating pawns for the US to achieve its economic goals?

Conceived at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference, the main architects were Harry Dexter White, the US Treasury’s chief international economist, and John Maynard Keynes, the British economist. They saw the World Bank and the IMF as cornerstones of the post-World War II global economic order.

Dominated by the US as the major shareholder, they were nevertheless multilateral institutions based on a shared vision and shared values. Together with the Marshall Plan, it signified the beginning of Pax Americana.

As President Trump sets about defenestrating the multilateral system of global governance that has prevailed since WWII, their role — conceivably their existence — is under threat. The same may be true for the G20, the main forum for international cooperation since the global financial crisis. Regulatory cooperation in the Basel Committee to oversee the global banking system is also under strain.

Project 2025, the action plan for a Trump administration drawn up by the influential Heritage Foundation in Washington, described the IMF and World Bank as organisations operated by global elites which “espouse economic theories and policies that are inimical to American free market and limited government principles”. It recommended that the US stop funding and withdraw from both institutions.

Within these institutions, there is a sense of fear and paralysis, and officials are reluctant to speak out publicly. They are acutely aware that the administration has no patience with the importance both attach to combating climate change, nor any sympathy with the World Bank’s development mission as the US shutters its own bilateral aid agency. Nor does the US want to be the major funder or participant in organisations it does not control such as the IMF, where the managing director is traditionally a European.

The current administration has a similar attitude towards the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, the critical forum for regulatory cooperation and agreeing global banking standards for more than 50 years. It is another international body the US does not control. Already, co-operation within the Basel Committee is beginning to crumble, with the US, Japan, the UK and the EU all taking different approaches to Basel III capital reforms.

As for the G20, where the US takes over the chair next year, its approach is likely to be increasingly transactional. The indications are that the Trump administration will push to marginalise “unelected” central bankers and restore the G7, a grouping it can dominate, as the main forum for international negotiation.

Unquestionably there are reforms that need to be made to the global financial institutions. The legitimacy of the existing international financial architecture is questioned by countries in the global south which see it as western dominated.

And there is no denying the validity of some of the US’s concerns. Why, for instance, has China, the second largest economy in the world, received so much in soft loans from the World Bank? And why is it that, according to one study, US companies win only 2% of contracts financed by the World Bank, while Chinese firms secure 29%?

Playing the long game

However, the US would be wise to think twice before abandoning today’s global financial architecture. The post-WWII system has overseen a period of unprecedented prosperity for the US. Its influence in multilateral institutions has helped promote free markets, prudent fiscal policies and exchange rate liberalisation, all of which have worked to Washington’s advantage.

The system has been instrumental in entrenching the dollar at the centre of the global financial system as the world’s reserve currency, giving the US the ‘exorbitant privilege’ of borrowing in its own currency without constraint — an economic advantage that no other country enjoys.

It has also given the US enormous leverage in both economic and foreign policy. It is not just the dollar’s role in more than half of global trade, but the fact that nine out of ten foreign exchange transactions involve the dollar. This means that no international bank can risk being sanctioned by the US.

The multilateral financial institutions including the Basel Committee have also played a vital role in handling financial crises, collaborating at times of emergency. Financial stability is a global public good. It requires cross border cooperation at times of crisis and cannot be operated on a bilateral basis given the interdependent nature of the global financial markets.

The US benefits from this as much as anyone. Without the international co-ordination between G20 finance ministers, the Federal Reserve, other international central banks in the Basel Committee and the multilateral institutions, it is frightening to think how the global financial crisis might have panned out.

Perhaps the US will decide not to pull out of the the World Bank and IMF but merely seek to bend the global financial architecture from within to serve its purposes. Either way would be a dangerous step on a slippery slope.

Russia would be pleased, but ultimately the main beneficiary would be China. It has gained economic clout with its belt and road initiative and proved adept at working within international institutions. It will only increase its influence if the US steps back.

Does the US really want to see this happening? If so, it will be up to the Europeans to step up, as they are now having to do in military defence.

Prof. Dr. Andreas Dombret is a former Board Member of the Deutsche Bundesbank and former Supervisory Board Member of the ECB. He is a Member of the Board of the Atlantik-Brücke as well.

Marc Uzan is the Founder and Executive Director of „Reinventing Bretton Woods“.

Der Beitrag Why Trump is a threat to the global financial system erschien zuerst auf Atlantik-Brücke e.V..

When Donald Trump is inaugurated as the 47^th President of the United States on Monday, he will be entering the White House as the US national debt nears record levels, and as a leader committed to an economic programme that could increase debt by another $7.5 trillion over the next 10 years.

[related]The next President has also repeatedly committed himself “without question” to maintaining the US dollar as the reserve currency of the world.

The task of reconciling these seemingly conflicting objectives will fall to Scott Bessent, the man Trump has appointed as his new Secretary of the Treasury.

The US is not alone among advanced economies in seeing rising levels of public spending and debt. The political consensus on both the Left and Right in many countries has shifted towards bigger government and, remarkably in the US, many Republicans even outdo Democrats when it comes to fiscal laxity.

Yields have risen on fears about inflation and widening fiscal deficits

Until recently, financial markets have shown precious little concern about the escalating US debt load. However, that has been changing and market participants are beginning to worry. Ten-year bond yields in the US Treasury market moved up and volatility increased before the US election and yields have risen further since on fears about inflation and widening fiscal deficits.

In a recent survey of CFA Institute members, which includes the cream of the investment analysis community, nearly 80 per cent of its more than 4,000 respondents said that US government debt levels, and reliance on unfunded spending were not sustainable.

Nor do they hold out hope of the US changing its spots. Three-fifths of the analyst community believe that the US lacks the political will to reduce its debt-to-GDP ratio. A similar proportion expect the US to start losing its reserve currency status within the next 5 to 15 years.

The US has the privilege of serving, almost unchallenged, as the world’s reserve currency. More than half of world trade is still conducted in dollars and other countries need to hold US dollar reserves to pay for imports, weather economic shocks, and reassure creditors that they can service their foreign currency debts. When it comes to foreign exchange transactions, the US enjoys a virtual stranglehold, with the US dollar on the side of nearly 9 in 10 global forex transactions.

How long will the “exorbitant privilege of the US dollar” persist?

Reserve currency status allows the US to borrow in its own currency without the constraints that normally apply in financial markets. It is an economic advantage that no other country in the world enjoys, conferring on the US what a former French President described as the “exorbitant privilege of the US dollar”.

In recent years, it has allowed the US government to get away with undisciplined budgetary shenanigans and deficit spending on a massive scale because of its near unlimited ability to borrow to fund its fiscal and budgetary wish list.

Even though US debt is now at levels which are unprecedented in modern peace time, and the Congressional Budget Office projects that on current trends debt would reach a staggering 172 percent of GDP by 2054, recent US leaders have remained remarkably unfazed. Debt servicing costs exceeded $1 trillion in 2023, more than the US defence budget but there has been no attempt to curb this fiscal excess. Instead, massive deficit spending remained the only game in town.

Despite increased borrowing costs, there is no immediate indication that investors doubt the US government’s ability to borrow to fund this spending and rising interest payments. This may seem counterintuitive but there is currently no real alternative for international investors. The US government bond market is the largest and most liquid in the world and Treasury securities remain the safe haven for liquidity, repayment and safe keeping of the vast cash reserves circulating in global commerce.

Reserve currency status is a distinct global advantage that comes with a global responsibility

However, the dollar’s pre-eminence may not last forever. Authoritarian states are increasing looking for alternatives to reduce their dependence on the dollar and more and more questions are being asked about whether the US has the political will and determination to address its fiscal incontinence. Reserve currency status is a distinct global advantage, but it comes with a global responsibility to use the privilege judiciously in order to preserve trust in the dollar-based global financial system.

When confidence in businesses or institutions cracks, it invariably happens slowly at first and then suddenly. We may be but a few errant policy moves or geopolitical missteps away from undermining trust and creating broad and lasting disruption across the entire financial world.

In recent decades, when the US had both a stronger fiscal position and a more disciplined approach to borrowing, the dollar-based system successfully weathered several market crises. It withstood the dot.com crash, the global financial crisis, a pandemic cash bailout and regional bank disruptions. As a result, US financial buffers have been severely depleted.

The incoming Treasury Secretary has made clear his concerns about national debt and his own commitment to preserving the dollar’s reserve currency status through a combination of growth, higher oil production and cutting government spending. He is also committed to the Trump tax cuts, deregulation and tariffs.

It remains to be seen just how successful Scott Bessent is at achieving all these goals. What is clear is that now is the time to stop stretching the fiscal rubber-band and demonstrate concrete steps toward fiscal responsibility.

As a former Republican chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, Herb Stein, once observed about unconstrained deficit spending: “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.”

Der Beitrag Why the US deficit matters erschien zuerst auf Atlantik-Brücke e.V..

Von Andreas Dombret

“Never again” was the mantra of policymakers and regulators in the wake of the 2007-08 Global Financial Crisis. Forestalling the collapse of the global financial system involved pumping in huge sums of public money, not to mention the costs incurred by taxpayers as economies were plunged into recession.

The regulatory reforms enacted in the wake of the GFC were designed to ensure that never again would taxpayers be on the hook for excessive risk-taking in the financial sector.

[related]Yet little over a decade later, policy makers are back there again, confronting a loss of confidence in parts of the banking system and having to put public money at risk. It is mercifully not on the scale of the GFC but it was not meant to happen this way.

Last month the Swiss Government made use of emergency powers to rescue Credit Suisse through a merger with UBS while the Swiss National Bank made extra liquidity support available. In addition, Swiss taxpayers are now on the hook for potential losses on some of the bank’s hard-to-value assets, which are in run off.

Meanwhile in the US, the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank forced regulators to be flexible about the rulebook on deposit insurance for medium-sized banks. They offered a blanket 100% guarantee to all SVB’s depositors. A new liquidity scheme, backstopped with taxpayers’ money, was set up by the Federal Reserve to help out all the other regional banks suffering from deposit withdrawals. Furthermore, banks were allowed to borrow under the scheme by posting collateral at face value, even though some bonds in question were trading well below that.

It is true that the reforms enacted after the GFC have ensured that today’s banking system is much sounder, much better capitalised and a lot more liquid than a decade ago. This made the recent liquidity problems much easier to contain.

However, it is also true that the regulatory architecture needs revisiting and strengthening. We live in a much more volatile, febrile world than a decade ago. Developments in social media and technology have made banks more prone to panics and runs. Customers can now withdraw deposits from their bank at any time of day or night just with a few clicks on a smartphone. As a result of these changes, living wills and resolution mechanisms have been found wanting, while complexity is increasing.

There are already moves afoot to toughen up liquidity requirements for smaller and medium-sized US banks, which is long overdue. In the meantime, we need a fundamental reappraisal of the resolution system for Globally Systemically Important Banks to address what went wrong at a too-big-to-fail institution like Credit Suisse. One major reason Credit Suisse experienced a bank run was due to a loss of confidence in its business model despite having been adequately capitalised.

There are five issues that regulators should be thinking about:

First, we have only just emerged from this latest crisis and now is not the right time for softening bank regulation. There are always valid arguments to be made about the risk weightings attached to different asset classes, or about the liquidity requirements for banks, required under Basel III. However, in the current climate I believe regulators will see their priority as reinforcing confidence in the system.

Deposit insurance limits also need reviewing. This is already under consideration in the US and the UK, while the EU still needs to solve the issue of a common Eurozone deposit protection scheme. The backstop of the ESM, the European Stabilisation Mechanism, is capped at €68bn, while the FDIC is de facto unlimited. There are understandable concerns about burden sharing and mutualisation of risk in Europe but there are creative ways this can be addressed, e.g. by using reinsurance mechanisms. In a full-blown crisis, any banking union is going to come under strain if its deposit insurance scheme lacks credibility. Without a credible pan-European scheme, there is always the risk of a bank run in one country leading to depositor flight in another European member state.

The third question is the ‘too-big-to fail’ dilemma, which is very much back on the agenda. The US has the Volcker Rule in Dodd-Frank, which restricts proprietary trading by banks. The UK introduced the Vickers ring-fencing proposals which make it easier to wind down banking groups in the event of failure by keeping retail banking activities separate. In the EU, however, the 2012 Liikanen Report, which addressed the similar issue as Vickers of a firewall between retail and investment banking but in a different way, has been quietly shelved. It is clear that there are different ways to address this problem, and I do not wish to offer a suggestion. Whichever is their preferred option, regulators need to think about addressing the resolvability of G-SIBs in Europe.

Furthermore, there is the impact of other financial players on the highly-regulated banking sector. Trading activities of hedge funds, for instance, as well as easy to manipulate credit default swaps can have a destabilising impact on banks, as we saw during the recent crisis. Are we drawing the regulatory perimeter in the right place? This is another issue that regulators need to reflect on.

Finally, in all of this regulators should not forget moral hazard. Perhaps it is an illusion that in a crisis the resolvability of banks can be handled without any use of public money, but as far as possible the principle of moral hazard needs to be upheld.

Markets have settled down since the crisis over Silicon Valley Bank and Credit Suisse erupted, but it is by no means clear that the banking industry’s problems are all over. Rising interest rates have left many banks sitting on losses on their bond holdings and we have yet to see the impact of higher interest rates on credit portfolios. There are problems lurking in the commercial real estate sector, mostly but not exclusively in the US. You only have to walk down shopping malls on both sides of the Atlantic and see the number of vacant properties to know that many landlords are suffering. Meanwhile developing countries are labouring under the burden of higher interest rates on their borrowings.

I am certain regulators will get ahead of these potential dangers and give thought to the reforms that are needed to strengthen the global banking system.

After a career in investment banking Andreas Dombret served on the Executive Board of Deutsche Bundesbank, the Supervisory Board of the ECB and the Board of Directors of the BIS. He now advises selected financial institutions and is a Global Senior Advisor to international consultancy firm Oliver Wyman.

Der Beitrag Time to revisit bank regulation erschien zuerst auf Atlantik-Brücke e.V..

Die Europäische Zentralbank ist seit nunmehr 15 Jahren im permanenten Krisenmodus. 2008 ging es darum, die Schockwellen der globalen Finanzkrise und die damit einhergehende Rezession abzufedern. Kurz darauf brach die Staatsschuldenkrise über die EU herein. Da weder die EU noch die Mitgliedstaaten aus wirtschaftlichen und strukturellen Gründen rechtzeitig handlungsfähig waren, hat die EZB die Aufgabe übernommen, ein Auseinanderfallen der Währungsunion zu verhindern. Auch Covid erforderte entschlossenes Eingreifen, und die EZB stand der Fiskalpolitik geldpolitisch zur Seite.

[related]So wichtig alle diese Maßnahmen waren, so umfangreich waren auch deren Folgen, vor allem in Form einer starken Bilanzausweitung des Eurosystems und dessen dominanter Rolle als Käufer von Staatsschulden, die in die Nähe einer monetären Staatsfinanzierung kommt oder gar – nach anderer Auffassung – diese rote Linie schon überschritten hat.

Der Beitrag Die EZB sollte vorerst weiter straffen erschien zuerst auf Atlantik-Brücke e.V..

Europe’s financial services industry has found itself unhappily caught up in the wider disputes between the EU and the UK over Brexit, but the impasse over finance is serving the interests of neither side.

[related]With signs that the current UK government and the EU may be moving towards a more cooperative relationship, and with the UK embarking on a package of regulatory reforms to boost the competitiveness of the City of London, policymakers on both sides of the channel should seize the opportunity to try to break the logjam.

The EU wants and needs a good relationship with the City of London. EU policymakers are keenly aware that a genuinely effective capital markets union without the UK is much more difficult, if not impossible. Reducing companies’ reliance on bank lending is a critical aspect of a union, and that requires having access to London’s deep and liquid debt, equity and derivative markets.

Although the EU has attracted some business from London because of Brexit, it is spread across several locations – mainly Amsterdam, Dublin, Frankfurt and Paris. There is no EU financial centre to rival London and no realistic prospect of one in the foreseeable future.

However, the EU cannot and will not risk ceding control of its financial stability to an offshore centre where it has no regulatory influence, much though it wants access to London’s markets.

Like it or not, the City of London is now an offshore centre for the EU and, for example, clearing of euro derivatives in London is a valid concern for EU regulators. Clearing houses pose systemic risk, and decisions they take on margin requirements on sovereign exposures can have seismic implications.

For its part, the UK has lost passporting rights and its advantageous position as the gateway to the EU for international firms as a result of Brexit. Yet its strengths as an international financial centre remain formidable. London holds much of the financial expertise, the infrastructure, many of the asset owners and managers, and it dominates the private and the capital markets.

At the same time, the EU still accounts for a significant proportion of the City’s business – about one third of all UK financial services exports. One would think that the UK has every incentive to reach a sensible accommodation with the EU on financial services.

Can these positions be reconciled? As an Anglophile German-US national who has worked in London, New York and Frankfurt, I believe it is very much in the EU’s and in the UK’s interests to find a common solution. Otherwise, both will be losers.

Fragmentation of European markets helps neither the UK nor the EU – only other financial centres. For instance, the reason companies decide to list in New York rather than in Europe is not because of regulation — it is because of the depth and liquidity of the US markets and neither the UK nor EU can rival that on their own.

To find an accommodation, we need openness of mind as well as creative thinking on both sides. The UK is looking at how to strengthen the competitiveness of its financial services sector post-Brexit, diverging from EU regulation in certain areas to become more attractive for international business.

Abolishing the bonus cap is a case in point. It sends a signal of intent, although in practice it will have rather low impact. As such, it is unlikely to concern EU regulators unduly.

However, if the UK government is going to push ahead with dramatic deregulation, weakening of prudential rules and having more political control over regulators, the EU will be very concerned. Wholesale deregulation could also be particularly risky for the UK, given the recent market turbulence.

We all need to operate in the real world, where much financial services regulation is set on an international level and where competition through lowering standards is a dangerous game. The big concern for EU policymakers and regulators is that the UK wants to dramatically change the financial landscape in order to demonstrate that Brexit was worthwhile.

The EU needs to come to terms with the fact that Europe’s main financial centre is now outside the EU and a new, sustainable relationship is needed. Politics and the Northern Ireland protocol issue have gotten in the way, but it is imperative to move ahead with the long-promised Memorandum of Understanding on financial services as a prelude to a binding treaty governing the relationship in financial services.

This will need to cover the issue of euro clearing in London. With a good relationship between the EU and UK in financial services and suitable mechanisms for regulatory cooperation and oversight, it should be possible to allay EU regulators’ concerns about parts of the euro clearing taking place in London.

Without cooperation and mutual trust the EU is most unlikely to accept the status quo.

Diesen Beitrag können Sie auch in der Erstveröffentlichung hier lesen.

Der Beitrag Why London and the EU still need a financial services deal erschien zuerst auf Atlantik-Brücke e.V..

Noch ist nicht klar, wie viele Opfer die Corona-Pandemie weltweit kosten wird. Und genauso unklar ist es, wie hoch die Kosten für die Volkswirtschaften in Europa und der Welt sein werden. Sicher ist aber, dass zeitnah hohe finanzielle Mittel nötig sind im Kampf gegen den Erreger, der vor Ländergrenzen nicht Halt macht und alle Volkswirtschaften in ihren wirtschaftlichen Grundfesten erschüttert. Aus diesem Grund steht bei der Videokonferenz der Eurogruppe heute Nachmittag (Dienstag, 7. April 2020) auch nur ein einziger Tagesordnungspunkt auf der Agenda: Eine Diskussion der Finanzminister über finanzpolitische Maßnahmen zur Bekämpfung von Covid-19.

[related]Seit Tagen schon gibt es in Europa finanzpolitisch kaum ein anderes Thema als die Frage, ob als Antwort auf die Krise sogenannte Corona-Bonds begeben werden sollen. Staatschefs, Minister und EU-Kommissare sind allgegenwärtig in ihren Interviews und Meinungsbeiträgen. Befürworter und Skeptiker von Corona-Bonds äußern sich zum Teil sehr emotional, und die Debatte erinnert inhaltlich stark an jene über Euro-Bonds während der Schuldenkrise 2010. Ein europäischer Konflikt auf der heutigen Sitzung der Eurogruppe scheint somit vorgezeichnet.

Aber gerade jetzt kommt es angesichts der immensen gesundheitlichen Herausforderung auf eine entschlossene Antwort Europas auf die Krise an – eine Antwort, die wirkt, die die Bürger und Märkte überzeugt und bei der sich Europa nicht auseinander dividieren lässt. Sind Corona-Bonds die Lösung? Oder wie sollte solch eine Antwort konkret aussehen?

Was jetzt wichtig ist

Niemand weiß heute, wie groß die wirtschaftlichen Konsequenzen dieser Krise ausfallen, denn dies hängt maßgeblich von der weiteren Ausbreitung des Coronavirus und der Dauer der Pandemie ab. Aber bereits jetzt ist offensichtlich, dass Europa mit einer schweren Liquiditäts- und Solvenzkrise konfrontiert wird, von der erhebliche finanzielle Risiken ausgehen. Hierauf muss trotz aller bestehenden Unsicherheiten eine Antwort gefunden werden.

Die folgenden drei zentralen Aspekte zur Bewältigung der Corona-Krise dürften zwischen den Finanzministern unstrittig sein und sollten meines Erachtens die Basis aller weiteren finanzpolitischen Schritte in der Krise bilden:

Erstens muss die Liquidität der europäischen Staaten und die finanzielle Stabilität des Wirtschafts- und Währungsraums sichergestellt werden. Dies gilt in erster Linie für die besonders vom Virus betroffenen Länder. Perspektivisch müssen auch Mittel und Instrumente bereitstehen, um die Kosten des wirtschaftlichen Ausbaus nach der Krise zu bewältigen.

Zweitens müssen die gewählten Maßnahmen praktikabel, also kurzfristig umsetzbar sein, damit die Mittel schnell die Empfänger erreichen und somit effizient wirken können. Außerdem ist es für alle Länder wichtig, ihre Neuverschuldung zu möglichst günstigen Konditionen vorzunehmen.

Und drittens brauchen wir ein gemeinsames Vorgehen in Europa – ein Vorgehen, das von allen Mitgliedsstaaten vorbehaltlos mitgetragen wird. Finanzpolitische Solidarität muss alle Mitgliedsländer einschließen. Es bedarf also einer einheitlichen europäischen Antwort.

Pro und Contra Corona-Bonds

Corona-Bonds zeichnen sich vor allem durch eine gemeinsame Verschuldung und damit durch eine Vergemeinschaftung von Risiken aus. Insofern können auf diese Weise Schuldtitel in hohen Beträgen zu niedrigen Zinsen emittiert werden. Der Wunsch der Befürworter vergemeinschafteter Schulden, solche Mittel ohne Konditionalität und ohne Erhöhung des nationalen Schuldenstandes zur Verfügung gestellt zu bekommen, wäre bei Corona-Bonds ebenfalls erfüllt. Außerdem käme es durch Corona-Bonds angeblich auch nicht zu einem Stigma der Antragsteller, die diese bei der Inanspruchnahme europäischer Hilfsprogramme befürchten.

Corona-Bonds haben aber einen unwiderlegbaren Nachteil: Es bedarf langer Vorbereitungen, bis die Voraussetzung zur Emission von Corona-Bonds in Europa geschaffen wären. Und aufgrund der Skepsis der sogenannten Nordländer qualifizieren Corona-Bonds nicht als einheitliche fiskalpolitische Maßnahme in Europa.

Deutschland, Österreich, die Niederlande, Finnland und weitere europäische Mitgliedsstaaten hatten bereits in der Debatte um Euro-Bonds auf die „Moral Hazzard“-Problematik von vergemeinschafteten Risiken hingewiesen und davor gewarnt, trotz der bedrohlichen Krise Haftung und Kontrolle voneinander zu trennen. Dies gilt insbesondere in einer Währungsunion, die ausdrücklich keine Fiskalunion ist, wo also eine gemeinsame Geldpolitik vorherrscht bei unverändert nationalen Haushaltspolitiken. Für Corona-Bonds müssten die in der Eurozone geltenden finanzpolitischen Regeln und das EU-Recht grundlegend geändert werden, was einen breiten europäischen Konsens voraussetzt, der gegenwärtig realistischerweise nicht herzustellen ist. Eine Diskussion, das Budgetrecht völlig neu zu gestalten und damit die Souveränität der nationalen Haushaltspolitik komplett neu auszurichten, ist zudem verfassungsrechtlich anspruchsvoll und dauert seine Zeit – eine Zeit, die momentan ganz sicher nicht zur Verfügung steht.

Die Eurogruppe muss einen Kompromiss finden

In der Staatsschuldenkrise – keine 10 Jahre her – haben sich die EU-Staaten auf einen Kompromiss verständigt: Man einigte sich zwar nicht auf Euro-Bonds, aber auf die Gründung des ESM, des Europäischen Stabilitätsmechanismus. Vom ESM vergebene Mittel stellen vergemeinschaftete Schulden dar, sind der Höhe nach aber begrenzt, unterliegen einer Konditionalität und werden dem Schuldenstand des jeweiligen Empfängerlandes zugerechnet.

Europa verfügt also über den ESM, der aktuell EUR 410 Mrd. zu attraktiven Zinsen mobilisieren kann und sofort einsetzbar ist. Enhanced Credit Lines an besonders betroffene Länder sind sehr wohl denkbar, und es besteht angesichts von Covid-19 die Bereitschaft, ohne Troika und mit geringer Konditionalität auszukommen. Zusätzlich kann vergemeinschaftete Hilfe auch von der Europäischen Investitionsbank, der EIB kommen. Die EU plant ebenfalls, zielgerichtet Haushaltsmittel in erheblichem Umfang zur Verfügung zu stellen. Alle drei Behörden stehen übrigens aktuell unter deutscher Leitung. Und ein Stigma für mögliche Antragsteller ist im Markt nicht auszumachen.

Die finanzpolitische Lage von Italien und Spanien ist derzeit stabil. So rentieren 10-jährige italienische Staatsanleihen bei rd. 1,5% und 10-jährige spanische Staatsanleihen bei rd. 0,75%. Beide Länder haben in der vergangenen Woche erfolgreich emittiert und sind damit weit von den hohen Risikoaufschlägen entfernt, die sie während der Schuldenkrise bezahlen mussten.

Gleichwohl: Es werden in dieser Krise erhebliche finanzielle Mittel zur Stützung der europäischen Volkswirtschaften benötigt, und dies sehr zeitnah. Die EZB unterstützt geldpolitisch. Mit dem ESM, der EIB und der EU stehen existierende, voll handlungsfähige Institutionen mit großer finanzieller Feuerkraft und erprobten Abstimmungsmechanismen zur Verfügung, die fiskalpolitisch zur Bekämpfung der Krise genutzt werden können. Dies ist ein sinnvoller und für Alle gangbarer Kompromiss, hinter den sich die Eurogruppe heute einstimmig stellen sollte.

Statt Corona-Bonds lieber die Kapitalmarktunion vorantreiben

Die europäischen Mitgliedsstaaten haben sich bislang bewusst gegen ein Modell der „United States of Europe“ entschieden – eine Vergemeinschaftung von Schulden ist damit weitgehend ausgeschlossen. Eine Verbiegung europäischen Rechts ist gerade in der aktuellen, schwierigen Lage weder möglich, notwendig noch angezeigt und schadet langfristig nur der Gemeinschaft. Wir müssen angesichts der steigenden Schuldenstände vielmehr darauf achtgeben, dass in Europa aus der Corona- nicht eine erneute Staatsschuldenkrise entsteht. Nach der Krise muss schnellstmöglich wieder zu soliden Staatsfinanzen zurückgekehrt werden.

Es ist wichtig und richtig, dass die EU-Mitgliedsstaaten im Angesicht der Krise solidarisch handeln und gemeinsam die wirtschaftliche Stabilität Europas sichern. Dabei muss aber ökonomisch und rechtlich solide vorgegangen werden. Solidarität und Solidität sind zwei Seiten einer Medaille und gehören zwingend zusammen. In der Vergangenheit mussten in Europa realistische Kompromisse gesucht und gefunden werden, und das ist in dieser Krise wieder der Fall. Die Finanzminister wissen: Europe is all about compromise. Eine aufeinander abgestimmte Nutzung des ESM, der EIB und der Haushaltsmittel der EU stellt solch einen vernünftigen, tragfähigen Kompromiss dar.

Die Voraussetzungen für eine Vergemeinschaftung von Schulden können nur langfristig geschaffen werden und bedürfen vieler weiterer Verhandlungen und vieler gemeinsamer Schritte. Corona- oder Euro-Bonds sind in Europa aktuell nicht mehrheitsfähig und damit auch nicht realistisch. Die EU muss sich aber unbedingt realistische Ziele setzen, um zum einen die Bürger nicht zu enttäuschen und zum anderen die europäische Gemeinschaft beständig Schritt für Schritt weiter zu entwickeln. Sinnvoll wäre es zum Beispiel, einen einheitlichen europäischen Kapitalmarkt zu schaffen – ein Projekt, das im Gegensatz zu Euro-Bonds realistisch ist und angesichts des bevorstehenden Brexit auch von großer Dringlichkeit für die EU27. Europa sollte eine Einigung über die Kapitalmarktunion nach der Krise unbedingt engagiert angehen. Und damit beweisen, dass Europa sich beständig weiter entwickelt.

Prof. Dr. Andreas Dombret war von 2010 bis 2018 Vorstandsmitglied der Deutschen Bundesbank und hat die europäische Schuldenkrise von Anfang an aus nächster Nähe miterlebt. Seit 2018 hält er regelmäßig Vorlesungen an der Columbia University. Sein Beratungsportfolio umfasst u.a. die internationale Unternehmensberatung Oliver Wyman, die japanische Megabank Sumitomo, das britische Equity Research-Haus Autonomous und das Hamburger FinTech Deposit Solutions. Letztes Jahr erschien im Knapp-Verlag eine Dokumentation über seine Amtszeit bei der Bundesbank mit dem Titel „Stabile Banken in herausfordernden Zeiten“.

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Der Beitrag Solidarität und Solidität gehören in Europa zusammen erschien zuerst auf Atlantik-Brücke e.V..