The European view on insolvency
The new proposed European Stability Mechanism looks like it will come into force via a change to The Lisbon Treaty, and will avoid facing public vote by referendum. It provides a process for sharing losses with sovereign creditors in the case of national insolvency. (More details on that below). In yesterday’s FT, Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, an executive at the ECB, made the case against sovereign debt restructuring in the Eurozone. He argues that government debt is a central plank of …