Norbert Haering and Greek Economy

Norbert Häring is an economist and journalist. Since 2002 he has stated on finance and economics for the German commercial enterprise newspaper Handelsblatt. He is a co-founder and co-director of the World Economics Association (12,000 economists as contributors global) and co-editor of the journal World Economic Review, both of which goal to sell a pluralistic technique to monetary research. In 2014 he changed into awarded the Keynes Prize for Economic Writing for his contributions to Handelsblatt.

Norbert Häring

FM: What is your opinion on the modern-day repute of the economic system in Greece? For years, Greece’s triumphing view turned into to life centered on European Union and especially in Eurozone. Greek humans were now not asked neither informed of approximately EU and Euro and are still not known.

Norbert Häring: Well, rarely all people become asked. If international locations needed to do referendums on the Euro and the treaties, a majority tended to say no. They were automatically made to vote once more until they did it right, or their vote became honestly left out; it has turned into performed lately with the no of the Dutch to the EU-cooperation treaty with Ukraine.

FM: Nowadays, there’s a growing trend of double/parallel foreign money support,ter, which resembles Mr. Schauble’s view on the matter. This entails Greece staying inside the Eurozone, paying its debts in tough fo, rex, whereas salaries and pensions will be paid in this “parallel” forex. What is your opinion about it? Is this coverage contradictory to EU regulatiothathatstate that handiest one foreign money i.E? Can euro flow indie Eurozone?

Norbert Häring: The Eurozone guidelines had been bent in all directions already, that would now not depend on an awful lot, I think. However, it’d be terrible for Greeks if they needed to pay the debt in tough foreign money nonetheless and earn a lot, much less. There is no way those debts will be paid back because GDP in difficult forex terms might be very much lower.

FM: Why observe such forex (parallel) and no longer have an alternative a countrywide currency with the respective sovereignty?

NH: Because is a whole lot better for the creditor nations. They hold all the energy gy that manner.

FM: Is currency exchange sufficient for enhancing ng the economy within the globalized surroundings? What else is wanted? How can an economic system absolutely destroyed by the EU consisting of Greek can get better and be aggressive in the globalized environment?

NH: That can be not easy. A devaluation will now not assign recovering the residitrendsndy that Greeks have gotten used to. It could handiest help to bring down unemployment. With no assist and debt, comforGreece’s wages and dwelling requirements will sink closer to the ranges of nations like Bulgaria and Romania. Greece does not have an enormous industrial base anymore, which could gain loads from the devaluation. The entire hassle for Greece, Spain, and Portugal began whilst the EU changed into massively enlarged by many eastern nations with a lot lower wages. They are an opposition more often than not for the Mediterranean international locations.

FM: Do you imply a devaluation as is carried out now, the so-known as inner devaluation within Euro or the devaluation that a go back to a Greek national foreign money might also motive? How can it convey down unemployment charges? By attracting overseas investment through the offering, as an incentive, reasonably-priced hard work?

NH: An internal devaluation is not a devaluation. This is only a euphemism for salary cutting program or a program of shrinking right into a tighter belt. Wage cuts harm domestic demand. That is a horrible program. A devaluation of the currency isn’t hurting domestcallsall. However, it’s far nevertheless going to be very hard to prevail and almost impossible without debt alleviation.

FM: You have referred to that the Greek authorities turned into obliged to commit to the lenders to provide incentives for payments without coins. In Greece, they sell this idea (digital payments) as a manner to reduce tax evasion. On the other hand, there are sure economists that sell this concept as a way to increase liquidity inside the Greek market in view that numerous organizations conflict for cash. What is your opinion approximately it?

There are truly many appropriate motives for the Greek governments to move from coins to digital charge because the ECB has been using the want for coins against them. After all, they retain the tight lid on cash and because banks are especially afflicted in Greece. This is why Greece is any such desirable vicinity for the warriors in opposition to coins to puthroughhru and create an example, which they are then using to impress the German populace.

They say, and I am not making it up: “Look, all those countries have already bought these types of guidelines towards cash, putting themselves at the vanguard of the war in opposition to terror and tax evasion. We can’t stay behind.” On a European level, or for a Greek government that is not being strangled, these particular arguments in opposition to cash that practice for Greece these days, might now not practice.

FM: EU has become a territory with large peripheral variations whereas Southern Europe and especially Greece have to grow to be modern-day colonies. Is this a plan of EU to have cheap exertions to compete for the Chinese financial system? A plan that is in addition improved with the aid of the uncontrolled masses of immigrants?

NH: Where is not any EU-plan, where are distinctive countrywide pastimes. I am not sure if absolutely everyone in Germany is following a plan like this, but it looks a chunk like they are at the least now not running in opposition to a scenario in which the South subsequently drops out of the Eurozone, devalues, and presents cheap uncooked materials, labour, and migrant workers to an industrialized Northern-Euro-Zone. There is a book via Albert O. Hirschman from the early 1940s, in which he describes German exchange coverage of the 30s. The description isn’t like what we’re staring at now, although there’s of path no declared policy in that course.

FM: It seems that Greece is at a dead stop. What do you recommend be better for restructuring its financial system? Is it feasible to restructure its economy within the Eurozone? Can an indebt us of a gather a competitive benefit in a globalized environment?

NH: I might think the most effective desire is for many nations suffering from the euro together to leave the Eurozone. This might suggest that the person nations might no longer be battered by using markets and the EU separately, as they inevitably leave the Eurozone of their very own time. This is simply a completely uncertain guess. I am genuinely happy I do now not should make this selection. And it is very tough for the vulnerable international locations to coordinate in opposition to the German dicta because there is an immediately extensive strain on them if they try. When Berlusconi and Papandreou attempted, they have been eliminated from electricity within weeks.