ECB warns pandemic debt burden puts financial stability at risk

MARTIN ARNOLD — FRANKFURT

The rising debt levels of eurozone governments and companies have made it more likely that economic aftershocks from the coronavirus pandemic could trigger financial instability, the European Central Bank has warned.

While the economic outlook has brightened recently due to falling coronavirus infection rates and accelerating vaccinations, the ECB said yesterday in its latest financial stability review that the bloc was still far from safe.

“We are optimistic that financial and economic conditions will bounce back,” said Luis de Guindos, vice-president of the ECB. “There is, however, a reality that the pandemic will leave a legacy of higher debt and weaker balance sheets, which — if unaddressed — could prompt sharp market corrections and financial stress or lead to a prolonged period of weak economic recovery.”

The aggregate debt of eurozone governments rose from 86 per cent of gross domestic product in 2019 to 100 per cent last year, the ECB said, although it noted that this was mitigated by current low interest rates, which reduced the cost of financing the debt.

Sovereign debt levels will remain elevated next year, when more than half of the 19 eurozone countries will still have budget deficits above 3 per cent of GDP, the ECB forecast.

“Vulnerabilities from the outstanding stock of debt appear higher than in the aftermath of the global financial crisis and the euro area sovereign debt crisis, although debt servicing and rollover risks appear more benign given continued favourable sovereign financing conditions in terms of both pricing and duration,” it said.

De Guindos said the ECB would continue to maintain “favourable financing conditions” for governments, businesses and households and that any withdrawal of monetary policy stimulus “has to be gradual, it has to be very prudent” and in line with the economic recovery.

But he warned that once the eurozone economy returned to its pre-pandemic level of output — which the ECB expects to happen by the middle of next year — “it is very important for governments to lay out fiscal consolidation plans that are credible” to reduce debt levels.

Government loan guarantees and implicit support for big companies, such as airlines, could increase national debt levels further, the ECB said, warning of a “sovereign-bank-corporate nexus”. It said public sector loan guarantees were potentially worth about 14 per cent of GDP, but so far take-up of these guarantees has been worth 4 per cent of GDP.

The rise in corporate debt levels has been highest at the most leveraged companies, the ECB said. Companies in the 90th percentile of indebtedness have increased their debt-to-equity ratios from 220 per cent before the pandemic to more than 270 per cent by the end of last year.

The number of companies going bankrupt in the eurozone fell by a fifth last year, despite a record postwar recession. De Guindos said bankruptcies would rise this year, but the scale of any increase would depend on how fast government support was withdrawn.

 

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Articolo tratto da “Financial Time” del 20/05/2021