– Throughout Europe’s debt crisis, northern European leaders have often said they will not stand for taxpayers having to fork out for other countries’ problems, and the notion of “taxpayer-funded bailouts” has taken root.
Yet despite three-and-a-half years of debt and banking turmoil, with bailouts totaling more than 400 billion euros, northern euro zone taxpayers have not actually lost a cent.
What is more, governments in Germany, Finland, Austria, the Netherlands and France have saved billions of euros thanks to a sharp fall in how much they pay to raise money in financial markets since their borrowing costs have dropped steeply.
But that has not prevented the image taking root in voters’ minds of hard working northern Europeans putting money on the line to rescue profligate, work-shy southerners, fuelling resentment and undermining Europe’s unity.
In the run up to German elections in September, that resentment is only likely to grow, and Chancellor Angela Merkel, bidding for a third term in office, will have to reaffirm her commitment to protect voters from potential losses.
But the truth remains that German taxpayers, as well as those in Finland, the Netherlands and elsewhere, are no worse off at all, and their finance ministries have racked up savings.
“As an unintentional consequence of the crisis, Finland has benefited enormously,” said Martti Salmi, the head of international and EU affairs at Finland’s ministry of finance.
“We have not lost a cent so far,” he told Reuters. “The same as for Germany very much holds for Finland.”
In fact, German officials are well aware of their stronger financing position, the result of a more than two percentage point fall in borrowing costs, even as politicians continue to lament the risks being piled on German taxpayers.
When giving presentations in Germany, Klaus Regling, the German who heads the euro zone’s permanent bailout fund, often cites two studies that show that Berlin has reaped substantial savings as an unintended consequence of the crisis.
via Analysis: What taxpayer bailouts? Euro crisis saves Germany money | Reuters.