The Munich-based Foundation for Family Business has filed a criminal lawsuit against the Bundesbank, the central bank of Germany, alleging that the board of the bank has hidden the true scale of the risk borne by ordinary German citizens in the bailouts. The bailouts involved “Target2” transfers, which are automatic credits extended to fellow central banks (which, in practice, has been the central banks of Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain).
Hans-Werner Sinn
The sovereign debt crisis in the European Union can be summed up fairly simply: The governments of overspending nations are asking the governments of fiscally prudent nations to prop them up. The prudent nations, whose governments pay their obligations out of revenue, rather than by selling bonds, tend to be those in the more financially conservative parts of Europe, such as Finland, Holland, and Germany. Those nations that are waist deep in debt, whose bond offerings have in some cases been reduced to junk bond status, tend to be in the south of Europe around the Mediterranean Sea.
As financial analysts look at the finance ministries and the economies of Greece, Portugal, Italy, and Spain, it seems as if the moment one crisis passes another arises. Recently, concern about a possible default on Spanish bonds is driving down the stock markets in Europe. Only by piggybacking on the creditworthiness of stronger E.U. economies and relying on the money that the strong economies can contribute toward the myriad bailouts can the improvident PIIGS nations dream of paying bondholders for their sovereign debts.
More and more, it seems that the stronger E.U. nations who have been paying their own debts are unhappy about providing bailouts for those who have not. Elections in Finland a few months ago presented evidence of a genuine popular revolt against doing more to help bail out nations such as Greece.
Professor Hans-Werner Sinn of Germany has recently said that German taxpayers perceive a dangerous increase in credit risk to their nation from the many bailout schemes. “The euro-system is near explosion. It’s a horror scenario,” the professor told the Austrian Economics Academy recently. Sinn warned that Germany is already taking the risk for much of the £1.72 trillion in rescue plans for the debtor nations, which could place catastrophic debts on Germans in the future. A dramatic increase in capital flight out of Spain, which has occurred despite the bailouts, is strong evidence that investors’ faith in the ability of Spanish banks to pay their debts in the future is shaky, and Spain’s weakness endangers the German financial system, which is heavily invested in that country.
[...]
Original source.
