Greek lessons can help Europe avoid future schoolboy errors

摘要

Although the European Union now looks likely to survive even a full-blown Greek default, there are others, such as the UK, who must study the lessons of what has been a very long crisis'. Anticipation is rising in the euro area that the long-awaited debt swap in Greece has put an end to the speculative trashing of the country's government bonds. Private-sector investors have lost, one way or another, almost three-quarters of the value of their holdings. Most will have 'volunteered' to lose, believinga 73 per cent write-down to be better than the total loss that would come with a disorderly default. Many of the others have sheltered behind insurance policies that would become effective only if the write-down were to be made compulsory. For them, a default event would be a good thing. All through this Greek debt crisis - it seems absurd to refer to something lasting more than two years as a 'crisis' - investors have remained surprisingly calm. The euro-sterling and euro-dollar exchange rates today are not appreciably adrift from their levels in March 2010, when the whole thing kicked off. If anything, the market has become more laidback as the likelihood of a full-blown Greek default has grown. The sensation now is that Euroland's financial systemhas made sufficient preparation to ensure its survival, whatever Greece might throw at it.