Portugal bond yields are back to 7.5%, after briefly hitting 8%, as ministers resign and coalition government nears collapse
Here we go again. The eurozone crisis is stirring, confounding the boasts of various eurogroup leaders that the worst is past. Their claims have usually rested on the observation that governments' bond yields, and thus their borrowing costs, have fallen. The austerity medicine must be working, it is asserted, and a bright new dawn beckons just as soon as the current recession in the eurozone clears. Just look at Ireland, they say, or even Portugal, to see how bailout programmes can give countries time and space to adjust.
But look at Portugal's bond yields now: they are back to 7.5%, after briefly hitting 8% on Wednesday, as ministers resign and the centre-right coalition government edges towards collapse.
It is a radical turnaround from the position in May, when Portugal was able to raise €3bn (£2.6bn) via a ten-year bond issue at a yield of 5.7%. At that point, it seemed credible that Portugal might be able next year to exit, on schedule, its three-year €78bn bailout programme and start to fund itself in the market. If 7.5%, or worse, is sustained, forget it. The numbers don't work for an economy still deep in recession.
The political crisis in Lisbon is the market's cue to look under the bonnet of the economy. Steep tax hikes have allowed the annual budget deficit to fall but the International Monetary Fund predicted last month that public debt would peak at 124% of GDP next year "on current policies and outlook." Others think that it is too optimistic – 134% in 2015, say analysts at Barclays.
One problem is lack of competitiveness. "Improvements in external competitiveness indicators remain limited," said the IMF report, noting that only a quarter of the rise in unit labour costs since 2000 has been reversed. Thus the export recovery is weak, not helped by lack of demand from neighbouring Spain. In the meantime, domestic demand has collapsed amid pay freezes and an unemployment rate of 18%. "Economic recovery is proving elusive," commented the IMF. You bet: output contracted by 3.25% last year.
The IMF's other concern was that the "social and political consensus" behind the bailout programme was weakening. It was right to worry: austerity fatigue is the cause of the current political crisis, with the coalition split over how much reform the economy can bear. It seems highly unlikely any Portuguese administration could deliver the package of cuts and tax rises that the IMF and eurozone leaders are currently demanding.
For now, the crisis is not at boiling point since Portugal can fund its next big debt repayment in September. But even at current temperatures some form of compromise between Portugal and its lenders will be necessary since it should now be clear to all that the austerity programme has run out of road.
Logic says a Greek-style write-off should happen as part of another bailout, this time with softer austerity conditions. But experience says the road to that point will be long – it always is in the eurozone. Complicating factors include: the fact that the terms of the 2011 bailout have already been tweaked twice in Portugal's favour; the IMF's anxiety for the eurozone partners to fill any funding shortfall; and Angela Merkel's election fight in September.
What happened to Mario Draghi's bond-buying pledge? Forget that, too. As the European Central Bank has always made clear, it applies only to countries that can also raise some money from the market under their own steam. Portugal, at present, doesn't fit the bill.
It's the job of the bailout lenders to get it to that point – and it means that the IMF and eurozone leaders should admit that an overload of austerity is a self-defeating strategy in Portugal.
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