希腊救助大戏还没有落幕

    在与欧盟和国际货币基金组织签署的救助协议中，为希腊设定的目标看起来并不是很苛刻——至少表面看起来是这样。协议基本上要求希腊压缩预算赤字，逐步实现预算盈余，有能力偿付早已打折的负债，并为未来储备资金。但即便要达到这样有限的目标，希腊也需要进行一些极其痛苦的调整。这是因为无论从哪项指标来看，希腊经济基本上都缺乏竞争力。比如，希腊出口有限，出口仅相当于GDP的21%。这些限制了流入该国的现金额，创造了庞大的贸易逆差。与此同时，希腊的薪资成本也极其缺乏竞争力。同样的岗位，波兰工人的薪资仅及希腊工人的一半。

    迄今为止，希腊只实施了救助协议所要求的150项措施中的77项。但对于新民主党和泛希社运党来说，困扰他们的并不是救助协议的条款——毕竟他们是当初在协议上签字的人。真正困扰他们的是执行协议到的时间表——所有预期中的调整都来得太快了。希腊经济依然疲弱，依然缺乏竞争力，已经不堪一击。鉴于22%的失业率以及未来两年经济预期负增长，我们可以确信救助条款肯定会调整。否则，希腊甚至很可能拿不出足够的现金来支付很快到来的8月份本息偿付。

    因此，曾作为希腊财长花费数月协商救助方案的、泛希社运的埃万耶洛斯•韦尼泽洛斯建议，将希腊的实施时限往后推迟一年左右的时间，留出更多的喘息空间。但如果给了希腊喘息空间，德国可能会插手，因此新民主党需要聪明地运用这段时间。它希望降低企业税和增值税来刺激消费。这样做或许卓有成效，但也可能令希腊的损益表上出现更大的收入缺口。

    但是有一个领域不能给予希腊宽限，那就是私有化计划。救助方案最初要求希腊通过出售国有资产，筹资500亿欧元。迄今，它还只卖出了16亿欧元的资产。萨马拉斯表示，他正在致力于加快资产出售进程，希望能筹集到资金，改变希腊严重失衡的预算。欧盟或许能利用这种情形，允许救助时限后延，但条件是希腊要加快出售资产。

    近两个月来，希腊大选让欧洲市场陷于瘫痪，给欧元汇率带来了巨大的压力。随着大选结束，欧洲终于能定下心来解决拖累欧元的其他事项。这些天来，西班牙银行危机和意大利债务危机越来越岌岌可危，最终将需要欧元区成员国的全力关注。

    假如希腊再传出什么无稽之谈，显然对谁都没有好处。如果欧盟和国际货币基金组织能给希腊多一点时间来执行救助协议，会让这个过程减少一些痛苦。欧元区领导人本周末可能会商谈欧元区财政联盟事宜，在这个节骨眼上他们最不愿意操心的就是媒体和市场拿雅典的一些小问题小题大做。希望接下来几周在这一关键性改革逐步清晰的过程中，希腊别再惹是生非。

    译者：早稻米

    The goals that have been set for Greece in the bailout contract with the EU and the IMF don't look too demanding – at least on the surface. The agreement basically requires Greece to close its budget deficit and move to a surplus, allowing it to service its already discounted debt load and save for the future. But Greece will need to make some gut wrenching changes if it wants to meet even that modest goal. That's because Greece's economy is simply uncompetitive on nearly every metric. For example, its exports are limited, equating to just 21% of GDP. That limits the amount of cash flowing into the country and creates large trade imbalances. Meanwhile, its wage costs are extremely uncompetitive, with a worker in Poland requiring half has many euros to do the same job as a worker in Greece.

    The country has implemented only 77 of the 150 measures required of them in the bailout agreements. But for New Democracy and Pasok, it isn't the bailout terms that bother them - after all, they are the ones who signed off on them in the first place. No, what troubles them is the timeline – all the expected changes are coming on way too fast. Greece's economy remains too weak and uncompetitive to handle anymore strain. With 22% unemployment and negative economic growth projected for the next two years, you can bet that the terms of the bailout will be amended. If not, then Greece will most likely not have enough cash to meet its rapidly approaching August debt payment.

    As such, Pasok's Evangelos Venizelos, who as Greece's finance minister spent months negotiating the bailouts, has suggested pushing the timeline for Greek compliance back by a year or so to give the country some more breathing room. But if this breathing room is given to Greece, and it looks like Germany may be on board, New Democracy will need to use that time wisely. It wants to lower business taxes and the nation's value added tax (VAT) to spur consumption. That could be fruitful, or it could cause an even larger revenue gap to appear in the country's income statement.

    One area in which Greece should not be allowed to slack off would be on its privatization program. The bailout originally required Greece to raise 50 billion euros by selling of state-owned assets. To date it has only sold off 1.6 billion euros worth of stuff. Samaras says he is committed to accelerating this program as a way to raise revenue to balance the country's lopsided budget. The EU may be able to capitalize on this situation of this by agreeing to stretch out the bailout timeline in exchange for a rapid sell off of assets.

    The Greek elections managed to paralyze European markets for nearly two months while bringing incredible strain on the value of the euro. With the elections over, Europe can finally get serious about solving the other problems plaguing the common currency. The banking crisis in Spain and the debt crisis in Italy are looking increasingly bad these days and will eventually need the full attention by eurozone members.

    Further nonsense out of Greece is something that is in no one's best interest. As such, it may be less painful for the EU and the IMF to simply give Greece a little more time to implement the terms of the bailout. The last thing eurozone leaders need to worry about next weekend while drafting a possible fiscal union for the eurozone is some minor trouble in Athens that gets blown way out of proportion by the media and the markets. Hopefully Greece can behave itself for the next few weeks as this critical change takes root.