Post by Jaga on Feb 28, 2009 22:38:33 GMT -7
Seen from London and other places that might still be called the commanding heights of global finance, the countries of eastern Europe look much of a muchness. With the big exception of Russia, the rest tend to merge when viewed by crisis-weary traders glued to their screens. Sell one, sell all has been the motto. And down they all have gone – the Polish zloty, the Romanian leu and the benighted Ukrainian hryvnia.
Journalists too, including this one, often put everything together under one headline. “Turmoil over eastern Europe”, “Eastern Europe fears trigger rush for safety”, and so on. With little space and time what else can be done?
All this irritates friends in Warsaw, Prague and Bucharest. They cannot understand why, if they take the trouble to distinguish Spain from Portugal and Belgium from the Netherlands, west Europeans struggle to separate Czechs from Slovaks and Ukrainians from Russians (though the last one can be tricky since there are Ukrainians who think they are Russians).
In the crisis this matters. Countries doing better than their neighbours – Poland, for example – hate to be lumped with those that are not, such as debt-laden Hungary. So they plead for differentiation from bankers (and journalists). But they cannot go too far in emphasising the distinctions for fear of criticising their neighbours’ policies – and finance officials are normally too polite to do that.
So, it was a bit surprising to hear Jacek Rostowski, the very polite Polish finance minister, last week comparing his nation’s finances with Hungary’s. Explaining why he was not relaxing the budgetary purse strings, he told parliament: “There is some danger that going in the direction of increasing the deficit, we would end up like Hungary.” To make sure dozy backbenchers got the message, he said: “We are looking for a Polish answer to a Polish problem.”
Mojmir Hampl, deputy governor of the Czech central bank, struck a similar note this week. Writing in the FT, he said: “Some countries east of the Danube are suffering under the burden of huge franc-, dollar- or euro-denominated debts, accumulated either by the government or by the private sector, or both.”
Even if they are being rude about the neighbours, they are right to say important distinctions are lost. In financial terms, the region divides into three categories. First come Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia (readers unfamiliar with the territory should note that the last two are not the same, even though one regional financial institution once mixed them up, illustrating a report on Slovakia with a map of Slovenia, or perhaps it was the other way around.) These four states insist they have their external and fiscal positions under control and believe they can contain emerging difficulties in banking. No way are they going to the International Monetary Fund.
;D
...
www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5618118a-0507-11de-8166-000077b07658.html
Journalists too, including this one, often put everything together under one headline. “Turmoil over eastern Europe”, “Eastern Europe fears trigger rush for safety”, and so on. With little space and time what else can be done?
All this irritates friends in Warsaw, Prague and Bucharest. They cannot understand why, if they take the trouble to distinguish Spain from Portugal and Belgium from the Netherlands, west Europeans struggle to separate Czechs from Slovaks and Ukrainians from Russians (though the last one can be tricky since there are Ukrainians who think they are Russians).
In the crisis this matters. Countries doing better than their neighbours – Poland, for example – hate to be lumped with those that are not, such as debt-laden Hungary. So they plead for differentiation from bankers (and journalists). But they cannot go too far in emphasising the distinctions for fear of criticising their neighbours’ policies – and finance officials are normally too polite to do that.
So, it was a bit surprising to hear Jacek Rostowski, the very polite Polish finance minister, last week comparing his nation’s finances with Hungary’s. Explaining why he was not relaxing the budgetary purse strings, he told parliament: “There is some danger that going in the direction of increasing the deficit, we would end up like Hungary.” To make sure dozy backbenchers got the message, he said: “We are looking for a Polish answer to a Polish problem.”
Mojmir Hampl, deputy governor of the Czech central bank, struck a similar note this week. Writing in the FT, he said: “Some countries east of the Danube are suffering under the burden of huge franc-, dollar- or euro-denominated debts, accumulated either by the government or by the private sector, or both.”
Even if they are being rude about the neighbours, they are right to say important distinctions are lost. In financial terms, the region divides into three categories. First come Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia (readers unfamiliar with the territory should note that the last two are not the same, even though one regional financial institution once mixed them up, illustrating a report on Slovakia with a map of Slovenia, or perhaps it was the other way around.) These four states insist they have their external and fiscal positions under control and believe they can contain emerging difficulties in banking. No way are they going to the International Monetary Fund.
;D
...
www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5618118a-0507-11de-8166-000077b07658.html