欧元区危机：现实并不美好

Sometimes things look so easy. Take a beautiful Italian lakeside town in the tranquil days of late summer, a gaggle of top politicians, financiers and economists, a central banker that keeps his promises and all of a sudden Europe's problems look less daunting.

有时候事情显得如此简单。看到夏末宁静的日子里意大利一座美丽的湖边小城，看到一群政治家、金融家和经济学家大腕云集，看到一位中央银行官员谨慎承诺，突然之间，欧洲的问题好像就没有那么让人望而生畏了。

Reality is a lot less rosy, but for a while last week there appeared to be light -- better, Italian sunshine -- at the end of the euro-zone tunnel.

现实远没有那么美好，但上周有一段时间，欧元区黑暗隧道的尽头似乎出现了光亮。更确切地说是，是意大利的阳光。

World leaders like Shimon Peres, Israel's president, super Eurocrats such as Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European Council, and assorted captains of industry, had gathered here on the shore of Lake Como for an annual symposium on the global economy -- like Davos but with better coffee. But on Thursday, most eyes and ears were on Frankfurt. The European Central Bank didn't disappoint, delivering plans to buy unlimited quantities of bonds of troubled euro-zone countries to try to curb their borrowing costs.

以色列总统佩雷斯(Shimon Peres)等国家领导人、欧盟理事会(European Council)主席范龙佩(Herman Van Rompuy)等欧洲重量级官员以及诸多企业领袖云集意大利科莫湖畔的切尔诺比奥，参加一个世界经济年会。这个年会跟达沃斯(Davos)相仿，不过咖啡要好一些。但上周四，人们的目光却主要投向了法兰克福。欧洲央行(European Central Bank)没有让人失望，推出了无限量购买陷入困境的欧元区成员国债券的计划，试图以此遏制这些国家的借贷成本。

Once investors realized that Mario Draghi, the ECB president, had been true to his word, stocks rallied, Spanish and Italian bond yields fell and, in a true sign of appreciation, traders started referring to the new measures by their acronym: 'OMT,' for Outright Monetary Transactions.

当投资者意识到欧洲央行行长德拉吉(Mario Draghi)兑现了自己的承诺时，股市大涨，西班牙和意大利债券收益率也有所下跌。在提到“完全货币交易(Outright Monetary Transactions)这个新举措时，交易员开始用其首字母缩略词OMT来代替，这是外界对措施表示赞许的真正信号。

Grazie, Mario. Now what?

的确要谢谢德拉吉。现在该怎么办呢？

All the 17 members of the euro zone need to do, according to the Cernobbio crowd, is to use the time bought by Mr. Draghi's move to further integrate their economies, banking sectors and political systems.

据这帮齐聚切尔诺比奥的家伙们表示，欧元区所有17个成员国现在应该用德拉吉购债之举争取到的时间进一步融合其经济、银行业和政治制度。

That's right. Europe's financial and corporate elite are resting their hopes for preservation of the common currency on the far-fetched idea of a leap forward in the continent's sluggish march toward unification.

没错，欧洲的金融和企业精英目前把维持欧元的希望都寄托于一个牵强的想法：欧洲在向统一大业迈进的举步维艰的过程中会出现“大跃进。

Investors who have hit the 'buy' button since Thursday would do well to remember: The monetary authorities have taken the rescue plan as far as they could, sacrificing their balance sheet and unanimity (Germany's Bundesbank opposed the OMT). Now -- and this is the bad news -- it is up to politicians and Brussels types to do the rest.

那些周四点了“买入键的投资者最好铭记，欧洲货币当局在援助计划上已经极尽所能，在贡献欧洲央行资产的同时也牺牲了欧元区在处理问题时保持的一致性（德国央行反对OMT）。现在，要由政治领导人和布鲁塞尔的欧洲官员来做余下的事了，这是个坏消息。

Cassandra-in-chief Nouriel Roubini put it best: 'Europe needs more integration, namely a banking union, a fiscal union, an economic union and more political integration.'

预言家鲁比尼(Nouriel Roubini)一语中的：欧洲需要更多融合，也就是建立统一的银行联盟、财政联盟和经济联盟，以及实现更大程度的政治融合。

Even the normally guarded Italian President Giorgio Napolitano jumped on the United States-of-Europe bandwagon with a passionate plea Saturday for a 'true political union.'

就连通常小心谨慎的意大利总统纳波利塔诺(Giorgio Napolitano)也开始支持建立“欧罗巴合众国的想法。上周六，他热情地鼓吹建立一个“真正的政治联盟。

Estimating the odds and timetable for a European fiscal, economic and political union is a fool's errand. I would simply note that each of those requires politicians to give up powers many of them -- and many of their voters -- regard as sacrosanct. More integration also would need to overcome what Mr. Roubini calls 'austerity fatigue' among citizens of countries like Greece, Spain and Italy, and its mirror sentiment, 'bailout fatigue' among German and Nordic voters. By comparison, a banking union may seem easier, but it is no piece of tiramisu.

估测建立欧洲财政、经济和政治联盟的可能性及时间表纯属徒劳之举。我只想指出一点，每一项都需要政治家们放弃他们中很多人（以及他们的很多选民）视为神圣不可侵犯的权力。更大程度的融合还需要克服鲁比尼所说的希腊、西班牙和意大利等国民众的“紧缩疲劳症，以及另一方面德国和北欧选民中存在的“救助疲劳症。相比之下，建立银行联盟似乎更容易，但也非小菜一碟。

Since the onset of the euro crisis, Europe's financial system has become more Balkanized, with banks retreating behind national borders under pressure from national regulators.

自欧债危机爆发以来，欧洲金融体系更加分裂，银行迫于国家监管机构的压力而退到国内。

The watchdogs' goal is understandable: At a fragile time, it is in their interest to discourage international banks from moving money away from their domestic bases. The problem is that when every national regulator follows this path, the overall European economy is starved of credit.

监管机构的目的是可以理解的：在困难时期，劝阻国际化银行将资金转移到本国以外是符合他们的利益的。问题是，当每一个国家的监管机构都如此行事时，整个欧洲经济就会陷入信贷枯竭。

'These measures all try to solve individual parts of the puzzle, but the repercussions on other parts are negative,' said Enrico Tommaso Cucchiani, chief executive of Intesa Sanpaolo SpA, a large Italian bank with extensive operations in Eastern and Central Europe. 'They translate into less funds available for the rest of the economy.'

意大利大型银行Intesa Sanpaolo SpA首席执行长Enrico Tommaso Cucchiani说，这些措施都试图解决问题的局部，但对其他部分却会产生负面影响；它们会造成经济体的其他部分能够获得的资金减少。该行在东欧和中欧有着广泛的业务。

Mr. Cucchiani actually believes that the ECB has noticed the counterproductive effects of banks' forced retreat and will try to mitigate it. Even if he is right, the removal of de facto capital controls won't, by itself, lead to a banking union. Supporters of the idea counter that plans, likely to be unveiled this week, to give the ECB the power to supervise some 6,000 banks will be an important step toward that goal.

Cucchiani实际上认为，欧洲央行已经意识到银行被迫回撤造成的副作用，并将努力缓解这种局面。就算他是正确的，单凭取消事实上的资本管制并不能催生一个银行联盟。有人反驳说，本周可能发布的、授权欧洲央行监管约6,000家银行的计划，将是朝着实现这一目标迈出的重要一步。

That would be right were it not for two fundamental flaws. The first is political: The plan has come under fire from the German government, which wants to keep control over its regional banks, so it is likely to be diluted. And the second is structural: The current proposal is silent on both a Europe-wide deposit insurance fund and on procedures to wind down failing lenders -- two crucial ingredients of any banking union.

若不是存在两个根本性的缺陷，那就没什么问题。第一个缺陷是政治上的：该计划遭到了德国政府的攻击，德国政府希望保持对其地区性银行的控制，所以计划可能会被“注水。第二个缺陷是结构性的：目前的方案既未提到建立全欧洲范围的存款保险基金，也未提到处理快倒闭银行的程序。要建立银行联盟，这两点都是至关重要的元素。

Once the markets are done celebrating Super Mario, they ought to make sure the OMT doesn't quickly turn into OMG.

一旦市场庆祝完了“超级马里奥，它们应该确保OMT不会很快变成OMG（哎哟，我的上帝！）。