给德拉吉的一点建议

It has been the eurozone’s misfortune that governments become complacent the very minute the European Central Bank starts to act. We saw it last year when the ECB injected €1tn into the banking system, and when the crisis resolution process immediately stalled. You see it now in Spain, where Mariano Rajoy is refusing to make a formal application for a full rescue programme. The fall in bond spreads has taken the pressure away.

欧元区的不幸是，一旦欧洲央行(ECB)开始行动，政府就变得自满。去年，欧洲央行为银行体系注资1万亿欧元，危机解决进程便立即停滞，从中我们看到了这种自满。在如今的西班牙也能看到这种情绪——首相马里亚诺·拉霍伊(Mariano Rajoy)拒绝为一项全盘纾困计划提出正式申请。债券息差的回落解除了压力。

But nowhere is the onset of complacency more evident than in the ongoing discussion about a banking union. I always suspected that Germany would turn out to be the stumbling block. And I was not surprised to read Wolfgang Sch?uble in the Financial Times on Friday arguing that the ECB cannot conceivably supervise 6,000 banks– which the European Commission will propose next week. Michel Barnier, finance commissioner, says it makes no sense to limit a system of bank supervision to the largest banks. Northern Rock, Dexia and Bankia would all have fallen outside the remit of a central European regulator. The largest eurozone banks are much less of a problem than the countless undercapitalised regional banks run by people with no understanding of the risks they are taking.

但自满情绪体现得最为明显的，莫过于目前正在进行的、有关成立银行业联盟的讨论。我一直怀疑德国最终将成为绊脚石。看到沃尔夫冈·朔伊布勒(Wolfgang Sch?uble)在上周五的英国《金融时报》上发表文章认为，欧洲央行无法令人信服地监管6000家银行（欧盟委员会(European Commission)将在本周对此提议），也并不意外。欧盟金融专员米歇尔·巴尼耶(Michel Barnier)称，将银行监督系统的范围限制为最大的几家银行，是没有道理的。如果这样做的话，北岩银行(Northern Rock)、德克夏(Dexia)和Bankia均将脱离欧洲中央监管机构的法眼。欧元区有无数家地区银行资本不足，其运营者对面对的风险一无所知。比起它们而言，大银行的问题要小得多。

Germany’s public banks, savings banks and mutual banks are lobbying hard not to fall under a European system. Their business models rely on a friendly neighbourhood regulator looking the other way. If you imposed stringent controls on the German banking systems, the cosy relationship between industry and banks would be disturbed. The Germans see Mr Barnier’s proposal as an attack on their economic model.

德国的公有银行、储蓄银行和互助银行正在奋力游说，希望游离于欧洲体系之外。它们的经营模式，依赖于一个友好、亲和、睁一只眼闭一只眼的监管机构。如果对德国银行体系严加控制，那么工业和银行之间的亲切关系就会受到干扰。德国人认为巴尼耶的提议是对德国经济模式的攻击。

If the German position prevails – and it may well do – the project of a banking union will have irrevocably failed. There will be something called a banking union, announced and celebrated. The EU will congratulate itself, but it will be largely irrelevant to the workings of the financial sector. The eurozone will remain a monetary union with nationally supervised and crisis-prone banks for the foreseeable future.

假如德国的立场占了上风（很有可能如此），那么银行业联盟计划将无可挽回地遭到失败。欧洲会建立起所谓的“银行业联盟，昭告天下，普天同庆。欧盟也会自我祝贺，但这个联盟将在很大程度上与金融业的运作没有关系。在可以预见的未来，欧元区仍将是一个货币联盟，其中的银行仍将由国家监管，危机丛生。

Germany’s expressed preference to restrict centralised supervision to 25 banks reminds me of the debate about the EU mergers and acquisitions regime in the late 1980s. The disagreement between member states was solved through a size threshold. The European Commission would deal with large cross-border mergers, member states with the rest. Germany now applies the same thinking to the question of banking supervision. Mr Sch?uble and his colleagues are looking at this from the perspective of competition policy, not financial stability, which is absurd. They fear an erosion of their own competitiveness. Once again, national interests take priority over the eurozone-wide common good.

德国公开表明希望将中央化监督的范围限制在25家银行，让我想到了上世纪80年代末的欧盟并购制度之争。当时，成员国之间的分歧通过设定规模临界值的方法得到解决，大型跨国并购由欧盟委员会过问，剩下的则交给成员国管辖。德国目前对于银行业监督一事，采取的是同一种思维。朔伊布勒及其同僚的出发点是竞争政策而非金融稳定，这是荒谬的。他们担心本国的竞争力遭到侵蚀。国家利益再一次凌驾于全欧元区的共同利益之上。

A robust system must give a clear and positive answer to this question: who takes the final decision over whether to force a bank to raise capital, or whether to close down a bank? If it is the ECB, then we are at the right side of a compromise.

一个稳健的系统必须对下面这个问题给出清晰、确定的回答：在是否强迫一家银行增资、或者是否关闭一家银行的问题上，谁拥有最终决定权？如果答案是欧洲央行，那么做出妥协是正确的。

If not, for example if the ECB has to consult with local regulators, nothing much will change, except to involve more people in a convoluted process. A proper banking union is the bare minimum for the eurozone to function, because the banking sector intermediates the imbalances that have arisen in the real economy.

如果不是（比如欧洲央行必须与地方监管机构协商），那么除了将更多人纳入一个繁杂的过程之外，并不会有太大的改变。建立起一个名副其实的银行业联盟，是欧元区正常运转的最低要求，因为银行业能够协调实体经济中出现的不均衡。

In the absence of a fiscal union, this is where transfers can take place – through deposit insurance and bank recapitalisations. Ideally, you would have both. But without either, the system cannot function.

在没有财政联盟的情况下，银行业联盟可以促进财政转移，手段包括存款保险和银行资本重组。理想状况是二者兼备，但如果一样也没有，体系就无法工作。

Mario Draghi reminded us in an essay in Germany’s Die Zeit that the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has been closing down an average of 90 banks per year.

马里奥·德拉吉(Mario Draghi)在德国《时代周报》(Die Zeit)中撰文提醒我们，美国联邦存款保险公司(US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation)平均每年关闭90家银行。

The EU has a lot further to go in deleveraging and recapitalising.

在去杠杆和资本重组方面，欧盟还有很长的路要走。

And yet, the Spanish government continues to insist that there should not be a single bank closure. The purpose of a banking union is not symbolism, it is to restructure and recapitalise the banking system, and to share financial risk. The eurozone is not sustainable without it.

然而，西班牙政府仍坚持认为不能关闭任何一家银行。银行业联盟的宗旨不是起到象征作用，而是从结构和资本上重组银行体系，并分担金融风险。没有它，欧元区就难以为继。

Even Mr Barnier’s proposal, far-reaching as it may be, will not be sufficient. A banking union requires more than just an agreement on a central regulator. It would have huge implications for national law. For as long as national insolvency and labour laws diverge, the central regulator cannot just walk in and fire directors, or close down a bank. The banking union needs to be backed by a harmonisation of commercial and labour laws as they apply to banks – or better still, it should take the banks completely out of national jurisdiction.

巴尼耶的提议可能所涉范围甚广，但还是不够。银行业联盟需要的，不仅仅是一纸关于中央监管机构的协议。它对各国法律也有着深远影响。因为，只要各国的破产法和劳动法存在分歧，中央监管机构就不能随意介入并解雇高管，或是关闭银行。商业法和劳动法应用于银行时就需要协调统一，这是银行业联盟的支柱。如果银行业联盟完全将银行带出国家司法管辖范围之外，那就更好了。

If I had one piece of advice for Mr Draghi, it would be this: do not accept an unlimited bond purchasing programme without an agreement on a credible banking union. The issues are not directly linked, but without a stabilisation of the financial sector, no ECB bond purchasing programme can succeed in the long run.

如果我要对德拉吉提一个建议的话，这个建议是：若没有达成协议建立一个可靠的银行业联盟，就不要接受无限制的债券购买计划。两件事并没有直接关系，但没有金融业的稳定，欧洲央行的债券购买计划就不会在长期内取得成功。