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The UK's Liabilities to the Financial Mechanisms of the European Union

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The UK's Liabilities to the Financial Mechanisms of the European Union The UK’s liabilities to the financial mechanisms of the European Union By Bob Lyddon Lyddon Consulting Services Limited The UK’s liabilities to the financial mechanisms of the European Union By Bob Lyddon Lyddon Consulting Services Limited ISBN: 978-0-9564614-6-9 Published in May 2016 by The Bruges Group, 214 Linen Hall, 162-168 Regent Street, London W1B 5TB www.brugesgroup.com Follow us on twitter @brugesgroup Find our facebook group: The Bruges Group Bruges Group publications are not intended to represent a corporate view of European and international developments. Contributions are chosen on the basis of their intellectual rigour and their ability to open up new avenues for debate. Table of Contents Preface ............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 4 Author biography ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 5 Source Documents ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 6 Glossary .......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 7 Executive Summary ..................................................................................................................................................................................11 Sovereign risk and “the full faith and credit of the United Kingdom” ...................................................................................15 EU Member State credit ratings and the “creditor ladder” .........................................................................................................16 How obligations to EU organisations sit within the structure of the UK’s public finances ...........................................19 What status the UK’s public finances are in and how calls for funds from the EU are met ...........................................21 The organisations that benefit from Member State guarantees and how the guarantees could materialise into a demand for cash ........................................................................................22 The European Union (including the European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism) ........................................................23 The European Investment Bank (including the European Fund for Strategic Investments) .........................................35 The European Central Bank ...................................................................................................................................................................59 Who is benefitting from all of this? ....................................................................................................................................................65 The European Union and the European Investment Bank as “credit enhancements” for investor money going into borrower countries ...............................................................................................................66 Which Member States are contributing the most in terms of their percentage share in the guarantee structure? .............................................................................................................................................................67 Which Member States are benefitting the most in terms of the quantity of loans they are accessing? .................68 Which Member States are benefitting the most from the “credit enhancement” being applied by the European Union and the European Investment Bank ...............................................................72 Which Member States are being exploited the most by lending their “full faith and credit” as a “credit enhancement” for loans from investors to both Member States and non-Member States ...................77 Absence of UK sovereign controls ......................................................................................................................................................78 Critique of this “washing machine” in a time when the UK has imposed austerity on itself ........................................79 Summary and conclusions ....................................................................................................................................................................79 Appendices The credit-rating systems of Standard and Poors (S&P) and Moodys and their importance .......................................81 EU Member State Long-Term Credit Ratings and the status of Member States’ linkage to the Euro ........................85 Preface This paper has been commissioned by the Bruges Group in the run-up to the June 2016 referendum on the UK’s continued membership of the European Union. The Bruges Group believes understanding the economic consequences of that decision requires a full picture to be obtained, addressing all of (i) the trade benefits and drawbacks to EU membership, (ii) the cash costs and cash benefits, and lastly (iii) the financial obligations that are part and parcel of EU membership as well as any benefits that go with those obligations. This paper is about the last one of these, while touching on the second one in order to put it in context. It lays out how the mechanisms operate under which the UK’s financial obligations towards the EU are set, and how the obligations can be increased or reduced. It describes the risk-sharing amongst Member States, on a sliding scale between three variations: 1. Lowest sharing: the risk is shared by Eurozone members only, and no member’s obligation can exceed a fixed proportion of the whole amount; 2. Middle sharing: the risk is shared by all Member States, but still no member’s obligation can exceed a fixed proportion of the whole amount; 3. Highest sharing: the risk is shared by all Member States on a basis where each Member State could be asked to pay more, up to the entire amount, if other Member States cannot pay. Any Member State, particularly a Euro-Out one, should be sensitive to these distinctions, as the credit rating agencies and international investors are. Variation (3) represents the best credit risk for investors as it is the one in which obligations are “collectivised” to the highest possible degree; by extension it is the worst one for Mem- ber States. The European authorities have tried and will continue to try to bring Variation (3) into play in as many instances as possible, both directly through mechanisms like the European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism, but also indirectly, such as in the case of the European Fund for Strategic Investments, under which the EIB - operating to Variation (2) itself - benefits from a guarantee from the European Union, which operates to Variation (3). The reader will make up their own mind after examining this paper whether it is truly the case that the UK is not part of the Eurozone bailout when most of the mechanisms used to facilitate the Eurozone recovery operate under Variations (2) and (3), in which all Member States are involved: • The European Union – rated AAA/Aaa • European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism – through the EU • European Investment Bank – rated AAA/Aaa • European Fund for Strategic Investments – through the EU and EIB The three mechanisms in which the UK does not participate are: • European Financial Stability Facility – rated AA/Aa1 • European Stability Mechanism – rated Aa1 (Moodys only; no S&P rating) • The informal TARGET imbalances within the European System of Central Banks 4 Author biography Bob Lyddon is an expert in international banking, working through his own consultancy company Lyddon Con- sulting Services. Bob’s particular areas of expertise include banking regulation, the sovereign debt crisis, and international mon- ey transfer and electronic banking. Bob has consulted for major organizations on the Single Euro Payments Area and Payment Services Directive 1, and in 2012 he wrote, for The Bruges Group, an authoritative paper on the UK’s financial liabilities at that time to the European Investment Bank, the European Central Bank and Eurosystem, and the European Community. That paper – “The UK’s risks and exposure to the European Investment Bank and other European financial mech- anisms: amounts, safeguards and breaches in the dyke” – contributed to the UK Treasury including the UK’s contingent liability on the European Investment Bank in the national accounts for the first time. Between 1997 and 2000, Bob was a Principal in the Strategic Change Management Consulting practice of PricewaterhouseCoopers, and managed several projects for the original implementation of the EUR, notably in Luxembourg and London. In a banking career over 17 years Bob was latterly Director of European Cash Management at BankBoston, where he designed of the Connector multibank payments network and the Optimizer cross-currency notional pooling service. Bob served initially with Lloyds Bank International, where he was involved with Sovereign Risk lending under the Dutch government export credit schemes, financing such projects as dry docks in Nigeria constructed by the Royal Dutch Harbourworks company, and gas-fired
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