http://cn.nytimes.com/world/20150714/c14europe/en-us/
Deal on Greek Debt Crisis Exposes Europe’s Deepening Fissures
STEVEN ERLANGER July 14, 2015
LONDON — Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said about Greece on Sunday that “the most important currency has been lost: that is trust and reliability.” But many Germans think the most important currency that has been lost is the deutsche mark, the symbol of rectitude and confidence that embodied West Germany’s ascent from the ashes of World War II.
That same sense of solidity is badly lacking in the European Union as it confronts the limits of its ambitions, and Monday morning’s painful deal on Greece seems unlikely to restore it.
The latest effort to preserve Greek membership in the eurozone has only deepened the fissures within the European Union between north and south, between advanced economies and developing ones, between large countries and smaller ones, between lenders and debtors, and, just as important, between those 19 countries within the eurozone and the nine European Union nations outside it.
In the name of preserving the “European project” and European “solidarity,” the ultimatum put to Greece required something close to the surrender of the nation’s sovereignty. For all of Greece’s past sins, and for all of the gamesmanship and harsh talk of the governing Syriza party, this outcome arguably had elements of punishment as well as fiscal responsibility.
Whether this is good or bad for Greece, in the end, the Greeks will decide. But it averted an outcome that could have left Europe even more badly fractured. And it highlighted the willingness of some leaders to make a compelling case for unity over narrow national interest, especially President François Hollande of France, who played an important role in mediating between Germany and Greece.
Unpopular and yet contemplating another run for the presidency in 2017, Mr. Hollande displayed leadership and distanced himself from Ms. Merkel and German demands, which many in Europe, especially in France, saw as selfishness and even vindictiveness.
On Monday, Mr. Hollande said that “even if it was long, I think for Europe this was a good night and a good day.” That is true, given the alternatives.
But it will be even better if the European Union can now, after so many years, lift its head from its euro crisis and begin to concentrate on other critical issues: providing economic growth and jobs for its young people, a rational and unified policy on migration, a response to Russian ambitions in Ukraine and elsewhere, and a British vote on whether to leave the European Union.
A so-called Brexit — an exit by Britain, which is expected to overtake France as Europe’s second-largest economy and is one of Europe’s main military and diplomatic actors, with a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council — would be far more damaging to the European Union than the departure of small, difficult Greece.
Britain, which never joined the euro currency bloc, plans to hold a referendum by the end of 2017 on whether to remain a member of the European Union, and Prime Minister David Cameron is negotiating now to change Britain’s terms of membership. The mess over Greece has hardly helped the reputation of the European Union inside Britain, but it may also help Mr. Cameron secure a better deal.
And the challenge to the post-Cold War order in Europe posed by a newly revanchist Russia is a bigger threat to European ideals of peace and stability than Brussels seems to understand.
Together with the migration crisis and Greece, these represent “the four horsemen” circling around Europe’s future, said Rem Korteweg of the Center for European Reform, a research institution based in London.
“The four horsemen threaten the E.U. precisely because they raise issues that can only be solved if governments prioritize a European solution over narrow national agendas,” he said. “If a European answer cannot be found, the horsemen will continue to promote chaos, instability and mutual recrimination” within the European Union.
As for Ms. Merkel, her reputation hangs in the balance, at home and in her role as Europe’s de facto leader. Having rejected a Greek exit from the eurozone three years agoin the name of European solidarity, she has again avoided that outcome. This time, she risked considerable cost to her political standing at home. But what would really damage her legacy is another expensive bailout for Greece that fails.
Greece was allowed into the eurozone for largely the same reasons, wishful politics, that put ancient Greece, the core of European culture, at the heart of a European ideal built on civilization and peace. The fact that today’s Greece bears little relationship to the country of Socrates or Pericles was simply ignored. And so was clear evidence, well-known at the time in Brussels, that the Greeks were regularly faking their budgetary figures to qualify for the euro.
The magical thinking involved was that the euro, somehow shorn of politics, would bring all these different economies into closer balance. The last decade has proved that to be illusory.
And Monday’s deal — if it is ratified by an angry Greek Parliament, and by an unhappy German Parliament, and not derailed by smaller countries like Finland with coalition governments that depend on the support of euroskeptic parties — will avert the debacle of a country leaving the common currency for the first time. But by itself, it will do little to strengthen the future of the euro, and it might simply prolong the agony and deepen the divisions.
For many in Europe, the euro’s economic benefits have been offset by the constraints it imposes. For the weaker economies in particular, it has become a sort of prison, limiting the ability of elected governments to use budgetary policy to smooth out the ups and downs of the economic cycle and eliminating their use of currency fluctuations to help manage national economies.
For Greece, the crisis five years ago was a chance to create a modern democratic capitalist state, which was one of the reasons to join the European Union in the first place. Many Greeks suffered, the debt mountain grew, and finally, as long predicted, the economic squeeze produced a political revolt — and just as Greece finally seemed to have turned an important corner and was running a primary surplus, in other words, financing its current budget and having something left over to pay its debts.
The victory in January of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his Syriza party led to the reversal of some critical economic overhauls demanded by creditors, threw the Greek economy backward and raised even higher the requirement for further loans. Mr. Tsipras bet big but lost. But so have the Greeks.
希臘救助協議無益於裂痕漸深的歐洲
STEVEN ERLANGER 2015年7月14日
Philippe Wojazer/Reuters
在周一凌晨落幕的會議中，法國總統奧朗德，左，發揮了重要作用，在德國和希臘之間調節。
倫敦——德國總理安格拉·默克爾周日說起希臘時稱，「最重要的貨幣已經不存在了，那就是信任和可靠」。但很多德國人認為，失去的最重要的貨幣其實是德國馬克。作為正直和信心的符號，它象徵著西德從二戰灰燼中的崛起。
面對雄心壯志受到的限制，歐盟也非常缺乏這種穩固感，而周一早上就希臘問題達成的令人痛苦的協議，似乎不太可能恢復這種感覺。
為保留希臘的歐元區成員身份而採取的最新行動，只是加深了歐盟內部北方和南方、先進經濟體和發展中國家、大國和較小的國家、債主和債務人的裂痕，而歐元區的19個成員國和未加入歐元區的九個歐盟國家之間的分歧，也同樣嚴重。
以維持「歐洲計劃」和歐洲「團結」之名，最後通牒對希臘提出的要求近似於讓其交出主權。鑒於希臘此前的錯誤，以及執政黨激進左翼聯盟(Syriza)的花招和粗魯言辭，這個結果可以說兼有財政責任和懲罰的成分。
不管這對希臘是有利還是有害，最後都將由希臘民眾決定。但它避免了一個可能會讓歐洲更加四分五裂的結果，並且突顯出一些領導人願意提出令人信服的理由支持統一，反對狹隘的國家利益，特別是在德國和希臘的調解中發揮了重要作用的法國總統弗朗索瓦·奧朗德(François Hollande)。
不受歡迎但卻打算在2017年謀求連任的奧朗德展現出了領導能力，他跟默克爾和德國的要求保持了距離。在歐洲，特別是法國，很多人視那些要求為自私，甚至是報復。
周一當天，奧朗德稱「儘管漫長，但我認為對歐洲而言，這是美好的一夜和一天。」從備選方案來看，的確如此。
但在這麼多年後，如果歐盟現在能抬起頭，將視線從歐元危機移開，開始把精力集中在其他關鍵問題上，也許會更美好，比如為年輕人提供經濟增長和就業崗位、合理而統一的移民政策、對俄羅斯在烏克蘭和其他地方的野心做出回應，以及英國就是否退出歐盟舉行的投票。
人們口中的「英國退出」對歐盟的破壞，遠比面積小、經濟困難的希臘大。英國有望取代法國，成為歐洲的第二大經濟體。身為聯合國安理會常任理事國的英國，也是歐洲主要的軍事和外交參與者之一。
從未加入歐元區的英國，計劃在2017年年底之前就是否繼續留在歐盟舉行公投。英國首相戴維·卡梅倫(David Cameron)目前正在為更改英國的成員國條款進行談判。在英國國內，希臘問題引發的混亂對歐盟的名聲沒什麼好處，但卻可能有助於卡梅倫獲得一份更好的協議。
此外，新近顯露出收復失地打算的俄羅斯，對冷戰後的歐洲秩序構成的挑戰，對歐洲的和平和穩定理念的威脅，歐盟似乎沒有充分認識到。
總部位於倫敦的研究機構歐洲改革中心(Center for European Reform)的雷姆·科特韋格(Rem Korteweg)說，它們和移民危機及希臘問題一起，將是未來圍着歐洲轉的「啟示錄四騎士」。
「這四騎士之所以威脅到歐盟，恰恰是因為它們提出的問題，只有各國政府着眼歐洲，把狹隘的本國議題暫置一旁，才能得到解決，」他說。「如果找不到着眼於歐洲的答案，這些騎士就會繼續」在歐盟內部「增加混亂、動蕩和相互指責」。
對默克爾來說，她的聲望有賴於其國內和歐洲事實領導人這雙重角色之間的平衡。三年前就以歐洲團結的名義拒絕希臘退出歐元區的默克爾，再次避免了這個結果。這一次，她是冒着在國內的政治地位會遭受很大損失的風險。但真正會有損她政績的，是又一次耗費重資但以失敗告終的希臘救援。
希臘獲許進入歐元區，和作為歐洲文化核心的古希臘，成為以文明與和平為基礎的歐洲理念的核心，在很大程度上是出於同樣的理由，一種表達意願的政治。今天的希臘與蘇格拉底或伯里克利時代的那個國家幾乎沒有關係這個事實，完全被忽略了。希臘為確保歐元資格頻頻偽造預算數據，這是有明確證據的，而且在布魯塞爾人盡皆知，但也被忽略了。
其中涉及的神奇思維是，歐元不知怎麼就擺脫了政治的牽制，讓所有這些不同的經濟體更接近平衡。過去十年證明，那是錯覺。如果得到憤怒的希臘議會和感到不快的德國議會的批准，並且不會因芬蘭等由聯合政府——它們需要對歐元持懷疑態度的政黨的支持——執政的較小國家而破產，周一的協議將首次避免一個國家因為放棄歐元而崩潰。但協議本身幾乎無助於鞏固歐元的未來，而且可能還會延長痛苦，加深分歧。
對很多歐洲人來說，歐元的經濟效益已經被它產生的制約抵消了。特別是對更脆弱的經濟體而言，它已經成了一種毒藥，限制了當選政府用財政預算政策應對經濟周期起伏的能力，使其無法利用匯率波動來幫助管理國民經濟。
對於希臘而言，五年前的危機是一個機會，讓它建立起現代化的民主資本主義國家，這也是它加入歐盟的首要原因之一。很多希臘人在債務累積如山的境況中煎熬，終於，就像一些人早就預測的那樣，經濟緊縮導致了政治反抗——而這正是希臘似乎最終看到了一些曙光，擁有了原始盈餘的時候，換句話說，也就是能夠負擔起目前的預算，並留存一些資金來償還債務的時候。
亞歷克西斯·齊普拉斯(Alexis Tsipras)總理及其激進左翼聯盟今年1月在選舉中獲勝，導致債權人要求的一些重要經濟改革發生了逆轉，也令希臘經濟倒退，並且需要獲得甚至更多的進一步貸款。齊普拉斯壓下了重注，但失敗了。希臘人也是一樣。
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For many in Europe, the euro’s economic benefits have been offset by the constraints it imposes. For the weaker economies in particular, it has become a sort of prison, limiting the ability of elected governments to use budgetary policy to smooth out the ups and downs of the economic cycle and eliminating their use of currency fluctuations to help manage national economies.
對很多歐洲人來說，歐元的經濟效益已經被它產生的制約抵消了。特別是對更脆弱的經濟體而言，它已經成了一種毒藥，限制了當選政府用財政預算政策應對經濟周期起伏的能力，使其無法利用匯率波動來幫助管理國民經濟。
a sort of prison "一種毒藥"應該是誤譯。
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Greece was allowed into the eurozone for largely the same reasons, wishful politics, that put ancient Greece, the core of European culture, at the heart of a European ideal built on civilization and peace.
希臘獲許進入歐元區，和作為歐洲文化核心的古希臘，成為以文明與和平為基礎的歐洲理念的核心，在很大程度上是出於同樣的理由，一種表達意願的政治。今天的希臘與蘇格拉底或伯里克利時代的那個國家幾乎沒有關係這個事實，完全被忽略了。希臘為確保歐元資格頻頻偽造預算數據，這是有明確證據的，而且在布魯塞爾人盡皆知，但也被忽略了。
黑體字該句錯誤，改成：希臘之所以獲許進入歐元區，多屬政治上的妄想，原以為將歐洲文化核心的古希臘，置於以文明與和平為基礎的歐洲理想之中，乃是天造之合。
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primary surplus的意思， 在上下文已說明。也可查：
至於翻譯成"原始盈餘"，我覺得有點怪。待查。
或可考慮"直接/初步盈餘'。
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