为什么说希腊选举可能将敲响欧元的丧钟

    希腊一边倒的选举结果，并未对市场的正常活动造成太大影响。

    反紧缩政党Syriza将掌权的消息一出，希腊股市应声下跌。不过，欧洲股市和欧元似乎没怎么受到影响，尽管Syriza誓将对抗三巨头——欧盟委员会、国际货币基金组织和欧洲央行，迫使它们免除希腊的部分债务，并允许希腊出台刺激性支出计划以及其它改革措施。

    市场对上述消息未加理会，因为他们仍然认为，希腊退出欧元区的可能性极低。英国金融咨询公司德维尔集团国际投资战略家汤姆•埃利奥特表示：“希腊新政府将发现，三巨头计划采取强硬态度。”埃利奥特称，希腊几乎没什么资本与其债权人进行谈判。该国有一笔价值45亿欧元的债务将于三月到期，在七月和八月，还将各有一笔数额相当的债务到期，没有欧洲的援助，希腊根本无力偿还。希腊的债权人可能会愿意对上述债务进行展期，或者降低利率，但三巨头不会进行债务豁免，因为他们担心这会使得其他债务国有样学样，纷纷提出类似要求。

    希腊唯一的资本是威胁退出欧元区，此举必将导致希腊出现银行危机，并陷入严重经济衰退，至少在短期内是如此，而对欧元区经济不会造成多大破坏。希腊新当选的代表必然会因此遭到指责。民意调查表明，尽管希腊存在经济问题，大多数希腊人还是希望留在欧元区。

    但投资者是否有些一叶障目？确实，上周日的选举可能不会立即导致欧元区解体。但不论是对欧元区这一货币联盟，对欧元区领导者重振欧洲经济的计划，还是对欧洲政治凝聚力而言，该选举结果肯定不是个好兆头。

    欧亚集团总裁伊恩•布雷默表示：“Syriza取得了压倒性的胜利，其优势之大，超出了所有人预料。而且此政党反德反欧的立场极度鲜明，不光是在经济层面，在政治层面也是如此。”

    反欧盟情绪不仅存在于经济萎靡不振的希腊。在西班牙，反救市政党Podemos也正赢得支持，而西班牙2015年年底的选举将对欧元区未来产生巨大影响。与此同时，法国民调显示，如果将定于2017年举行的法国总统大选挪到现在举行，极右翼疑欧派人士玛丽•勒庞将赢得首轮选举。即使在坚决主张维持现状的德国，也有名为“德国另类选择党”的反欧元政党处于上升态势，最近在州选举中收获颇丰。

    因此，尽管希腊的选举结果可能不是欧元区突然解体的催化剂，但它们可被视为欧元区失败的一系列例证之一。布雷默称，上周日的选举，是“欧洲治理分崩离析”的又一例证。

    唯有经济增长，才能促使欧盟更好地团结起来，重新确立共同目标。但即使在欧洲央行公布刺激措施后，欧洲经济方面也没有太多利好消息。欧盟预计，欧元区经济去年仅增长了区区0.8％，今年将仅增长1.1％。鉴于西班牙、希腊、葡萄牙等国失业率高企，且银行系统仍然资本不足，未来几个月欧洲经济明显改善的希望不大，因此主流政党民调支持率停止下降的机会也不大。

    市场目前可能对此不以为意，其部分原因在于欧洲央行上周宣布了大规模债券购买计划。但与一周前相比，如今欧盟的远景看起来黯淡了一些。（财富中文网）

    译者：Hunter

    审稿：李翔

    Markets are taking the landslide election in Greece more or less in stride.

    Greek stocks fell on the news that the anti-austerity Syriza party will take power. But European stocks and the Euro seemed to be largely unaffected by the news, despite the fact that Syriza vows to fight the Troika of the European Commission, the IMF, and the European Central bank and force them to forgive some Greek debt and allow the country to enact a program of stimulus spending, among other reforms.

    Markets are shrugging off the news because they still view the chances of Greece leaving the Euro as remote. “The new government will find that the Troika plans to play hardball,” says Tom Elliott, International Investment Strategist at deVere Group. Elliott argues that Greece has little leverage in its negotiations with its debt holders. It has a €4.5 billion bond maturing in March and two similarly large payments due in July and August, which it won’t be able to pay without aid from Europe. While its debt holders might be willing to extend the maturity on these debts or lower interest rates, the Troika won’t budge on debt forgiveness out of fear that it would encourage other debtor nations to ask for similar concessions.

    The only leverage Greece has is to threaten to exit the euro, an act that would surely cause a banking crisis and a severe recession—at least in the short term—in Greece without doing much broader damage to the eurozone economy. The newly elected representatives in Greece will surely be blamed for such a fiasco. Polls indicate that despite Greece’s economic troubles, a majority of citizens want to remain in the euro.

    But are investors here missing the forest for the trees? Sure, Sunday’s election might not be the cause of the immediate dissolution of the eurozone. But it certainly isn’t a good sign for the currency union and its leaders’ plan for reviving the European economy, or for European political cohesion.

    “This was a huge landslide, a larger win than pretty much anybody expected,” says Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group. “And this party has taken one of the most directly anti-German, anti-European positions you could take, not just economically but politically.”

    The anti-EU sentiment isn’t just a product of the depression-like conditions that Greek citizens have been enduring. In Spain, where elections at the end of 2015 will have huge implications for the future of the Eurozone, another anti-bailout party, Podemos, has been gaining support. Meanwhile, in France, polls indicate that the far-right eurosceptic Marie La Pen would win the first round of the 2017 French Presidential elections if they were held today. Even Germany, the stalwart of the status-quo, has an ascendent anti-euro party, called Alternatives for Germany, which recently won big gains in state elections.

    So, while Greece’s election results will not likely to be a catalyst for a sudden break up of the Euro, they can be viewed as yet another in a series of events that suggest that the union is failing. Sunday’s elections offered another example of the “disintegration and fragmentation of Europe as an effective source of government,” Bremmer says.

    The one thing that could jolt the EU back toward greater unity and a renewed sense of common purpose is economic growth. But even in the wake of the announcement of stimulus measures from the ECB, there isn’t a great deal of good economic news to report in Europe. The European Union estimates that the eurozone economy expanded at a measly 0.8% last year and will only grow by just 1.1% this year. With widespread unemployment in countries like Spain, Greece, and Portugal, and a banking system that remains undercapitalized, there’s little reason to believe that the European economy is going to improve enough in the coming months such that mainstream parties can stem their losses at the polls.

    Markets might be taking it easy for now, soothed by the massive bond-buying program the ECB announced last week. But the long-term picture for the European project looks a little worse today than it did a week ago.