EU ministers apparently made little progress last week on terms under which the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) would recapitalize weak banks, though they still hope for an agreement by end month.  That said, if a draft plan circulated by European Commission Secretariat is a guide, we are seeing another step in the disappointing (and risky) retreat from last year’s promise to decisively break the link between troubled periphery banks and their sovereign.  This plan looks like more of a bruise, or a slight bend, rather than a break.  The good news is that events likely will force a change down the road.

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The IMF program for Cyprus has been released (here and here).  Growth is projected to fall 13 percent over the next two years, though the discussion of risks implicitly acknowledges that a larger decline is likely (many private analysts expect a decline of 15 percent this year alone).  Given that the program contains 6.6 percent of fiscal consolidation measures during 2013-14, and a major deleveraging of the financial system is underway, skepticism is warranted.  The Fund also acknowledges that should these downside risks materialize, or program implementation slip, government debt (which is forecast to peak at 126 percent of GDP in 2015) becomes unsustainable. The programs have buffers, but financing looks inadequate.  Coming after a negotiation where the Troika publicly promoted one financing gap (17 billion euros) knowing that the actual gap was far larger (shortly after agreement on the program, the gap was revised to 23 billion euros) further undermines confidence in these projections.  The next review, slated for September 15, likely will have to confront these issues.

The most recent Pew Survey on European attitudes (summary table below) shows that support for the European integration project is dropping.  My colleagues at CFR are far more able than I am to address the broader political ramifications of this shift.  A few points though on the link between economic growth, public opinion, and support for the European reform agenda.

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Jaret Seiberg has an excellent summary of Ben Bernanke’s speech and Q&A today on financial sector regulation and reform.  This follows on Dan Tarullo’s speech Friday that highlighted the need for additional capital aginst short-term wholesale funding, an earlier Jeremy Stein discussion on liquidity regulation and the value of price-based regulation (rather than quantitiative limits on bank size favored by some in Congress), and similar comments by the OCC.  We now have as clear a signal as possible that U.S. regulators are ready, in Seiberg’s words, “to go beyond Basel 3 to impose to additional capital requirements on the biggest banks…[using]…a combination of a more restrictive leverage limit, a capital surcharge based on reliance on short-term debt, and a long-term debt requirement.” It also underscores the divergent approaches toward reform in the U.S. and Europe, where, against the backdrop of weak growth and credit constraints, the pressures appear to be leading to a slower, more bank-friendly path.

Ken Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart (R&R) have a good piece in the Financial Times today, “Austerity is not the only answer to a debt problem.” This, along with other pieces (for example, here and here), is moving the debate over their work in the right direction. On the one hand, recognition that debt still matters, and too much debt (whether the result of or the cause of low growth) is damaging to our politics and our economics. On the other hand, rejection of the idea that there is a universal growth “cliff” when debt exceeds 90 percent of GDP that is at work across countries (an idea their earlier work promoted, unfortunately).  R&R go on to argue that while fixing our debt problem is a central challenge, that doesn’t mean we need aggressive austerity today (though additional stimulus needs to be carefully decided on).

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I’d like to think that the ECB will surprise us tomorrow with a package that includes both a rate cut and measures to increase the flow of credit to the periphery.  That could produce a meaningful easing of financial conditions and a weakening of the euro, both of which are constructive for euro-area growth.

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Cyprus today passed the €10 billion EU-IMF bailout deal by a 29 to 27 vote, so it will receive its first installment of aid next month.  Capital controls (though eased a bit) will remain in place until at least the fall, when the bank restructuring is completed.  New financing gaps are likely to emerge quickly, as the economic assumptions still look too rosy, but the risk of default has diminished for now.

Cyprus has reached a tentative agreement with the IMF-EU-ECB team (Troika) on the economic program that will be backed by its €10 billion rescue package.  The IMF will put €1 billion, small in absolute terms and relative to the one-third share that it has had in most of its European programs but a very high share (563 percent) of Cyprus’ contribution, or quota.  The plan is for European political approval in coming days, followed by legislative approval where needed during the course of April, and IMF Board approval in early May.  If Cyprus passes all the prior actions required in the program, it could get the first drawing on the package in mid-May, well ahead of their early June debt maturities.

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The ECB meets tomorrow and is expected to remain on hold.  Of the 44 market participants surveyed by Bloomberg, only one thought that the ECB would lower interest rates at this week’s meeting.  Markets do seem to hope, and may be pricing in to some extent, a more dovish tone from Governor Draghi, but at a time when the Fed is continuing expansionary policies, and the Bank of Japan is set to join them, the unwillingness of the ECB to do more stands out.

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