Greek Contagion – Sarkozy and Merkel indulge in favorite pastime of blaming the "Speculators" ; EU to set up Stabilization Fund

Last week the markets were hammered due to the spreading of the Greek contagion with Euro falling , sovereign debt CDS of the PIIGS increasing daily and markets dropping at a frightening pace. Give this backdrop you would expect some sort of a Weekend Measure from the EU which has come in this form of a Stabilization Fund.Both the French and German leaders are going to defend the Euro against the “speculators”.More details later but I think most measures would provide only a temporary stablization at best. The EU problems will not stop unless they address the core problems.Rather than trying to solve the fundamental issues behind this crisis the European leaders are at their favorite pastime of  blaming the “speculators” and the Markets . The core problems that must be addressed are

1. Large deficits for some countries with large surpluses for other
2. The contradiction between individual fiscal policies and a common monetary policies
3. The uncompetitiveness of some countries with respect to others

EU to Set Up Fund to Prevent Spread of Greek Crisis – Bloomberg

European leaders agreed to set up an emergency fund to halt the spread of Greece’s fiscal woes, seeking to prevent a sovereign debt crisis from shattering confidence in the 11-year-old euro.

Jolted into action by the sliding currency and soaring bond yields in Portugal and Spain, leaders of the 16 euro countries said the workings of the financial backstop will be hammered out before the markets open on May 10.

“We will defend the euro, whatever it takes,” European Commission President Jose Barroso told reporters early today after the leaders met in Brussels.

Europe’s failure to contain Greece’s fiscal crisis triggered a 4.3 percent drop in the euro this week and led the U.S. and Asia to rally around in a bid to prevent a global sovereign-debt crisis from pitching the world back into a recession.

European officials declined to disclose the size of the stabilization fund, to be made up of money borrowed by the European Union’s central authorities with guarantees by national governments. Finance ministers will meet at 4 p.m. tomorrow in Brussels to flesh out the details.

“When the markets re-open Monday, we will have in place a mechanism to defend the euro,” French President Nicolas Sarkozy said. “If you don’t think that’s significant, you haven’t been to many EU summits.”

Independent ECB

Barroso said he wouldn’t push the independent European Central Bank to, for example, buy government bonds. ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet accelerated the market selloff on May 6 by rejecting that measure.

With the euro facing its stiffest test since its debut in 1999, the summit — called to discuss longer-term efforts to coordinate economic policies — turned into a crisis-management session that dragged past midnight.

The euro slid to $1.2715 from $1.3293 during the week, and is down 15 percent since late November. European stocks sank the most in 18 months, with the Stoxx Europe 600 Index tumbling 8.8 percent to 237.18.

The extra yield that investors demand to hold Greek, Portuguese and Spanish debt instead of safer German bonds rose to euro-era highs yesterday. The premium on 10-year government bonds jumped as high as 973 basis points for Greece, 354 basis points for Portugal and 173 basis points for Spain.

Spreading Contagion

Europe came under pressure on a hastily arranged conference call of Group of Seven finance chiefs yesterday. All agreed on “the need for a clear, timely and strong response,” Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, who chaired the call, told reporters in Ottawa. “We hope to see a strong, early policy response in Europe.”

The spreading contagion also drew the attention of President Barack Obama, who said in Washington that U.S. regulators will examine the “unusual market activity” that on May 6 briefly drove the Dow Jones Industrial Average down by almost 1,000 points, erasing more than $1 trillion in wealth before the market bounced back.

“There are impacts on financial markets, including share markets, from the events in Europe and in Greece more specifically,” said Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan, speaking to reporters in Canberra today. “We are urging as speedy a resolution as is possible in the circumstances.”

In Brussels, German Chancellor Angela Merkel stepped up German calls for a closer monitoring of government finances and more rigorous enforcement of the deficit-limitation rules, originally drafted by Germany in the 1990s.

Europe will send “a very clear signal against those who want to speculate against the euro,” Merkel said.