西班牙有话要说

    随着欧债危机不断加深，从马德里爆发游行骚乱到巴塞罗那威胁退出西班牙联邦，西班牙已经摇摇欲坠，看上去随时都可能坠入政治和经济毁灭的深渊。上个月欧洲央行（European Central Bank）经改进的债券购买计划使欧元区暂时得以保全，但西班牙等成员国的结构性效率低下问题每况愈下，可能从内拖垮欧元区。

    欧洲和西班牙将沿着这一经济裂口的高速路继续飞奔，直到它们都愿意做出艰难的让步，建立更协调一致的政治和经济联盟。

    但西班牙缓慢演化的经济崩溃似乎说明，只有情况变得越来越糟，欧元区领导人才会愿意放下面子来做出改观。

    欧洲央行的债券计划为共同协作赢得了一些时间，但这点时间的流逝速度看来快于人们的预期。随着西班牙经济陷入停滞，该国已爆发了民众骚乱，并扯开了旧的政治裂痕，威胁到国家领土的完整统一。

    这也扭转了西班牙利率的下行走势，自欧洲央行上个月宣布了改进后的债券购买计划，西班牙利率都是保持下行走势，直到本周二。周三早间，西班牙10年期国债利率突破了6%大关，跃升0.26%，是自8月份以来西班牙国债收益率的最大涨幅。周二，西班牙财政部发行52亿美元短期债券时也不得不向投资者支付更高的收益率。3个月债券的利率达到1.2%，显著高于8月份发行类似期限债券时支付0.9%的利率。

    目前欧洲央行的无限量债券购买计划尚未启动，因为欧元区成员国批准的多项几十亿欧元的救助计划仍陷于无尽的官僚繁缛中（欧洲央行计划动用部分该救助基金，帮助支付最初的债券购买）。欧洲央行可以现在就出手干预，但这意味着将进一步扩大其早已膨胀的资产负债表规模，欧洲央行行长马里奥•德拉吉不希望在救助基金用尽前就陷入这样的困境。

    救助基金承诺向西班牙提供约1,000亿欧元，帮助其陷入困境的银行体系。此协议于今夏早些时候达成，最初提供给西班牙时不附带任何先决条件或预算承诺。但周二，这项协议看来有点悬了，德国、荷兰和芬兰的财政部长们发表了一份联合声明称，各国应当承担起本国银行业资本重整的成本，然后才能向救助基金求助。

    发表声明的时机绝非巧合。周四，西班牙政府将发布2013年预算。周五，独立咨询公司奥纬咨询（Oliver Wyman）按计划将发布其对西班牙银行进行压力测试的最终结果。德国似乎是在传递这样一个信息：如果西班牙想获得1,000亿欧元，就要大幅削减预算，虽然最初的协议是他们可以无条件地获得这笔钱。

    西班牙已为国内17个省区政府设立了总计180亿欧元的救助基金，不到西班牙银行业资本重整预计所需资金600亿欧元的三分之一。如果西班牙必须要先用这笔钱，明年西班牙各省的预算将出现巨大的缺口。如果西班牙大量发行新债，债券收益率将升至令人不安的高位。因此，要再拿出420亿欧元（或许通过更多的紧缩措施）根本就是不可能，特别是考虑到西班牙经济的现状。

    From riots in Madrid to talk of secession in Barcelona, Spain appears to be teetering on the edge of political and economic ruin as the European debt crisis intensifies. While the European Central Bank's revamped bond buying scheme unveiled last month was successful in keeping the eurozone together temporarily, the structural deficiencies inside member states, like Spain, continue to fester, threatening to rot the eurozone from the inside out.

    Europe and Spain will continue down this autopista of economic tears until they are both willing to make the tough sacrifices that come with establishing a more coherent political and economic union.

    But Spain's slow motion implosion seems to indicate that things will have to get much worse before eurozone leaders are willing to swallow their pride to make things better.

    The ECB's bond scheme bought the continent some time to get its act together, but that time seems to be fading much faster than anyone had predicted. Spain's economic troubles are boiling over as its economy stalls, creating civil unrest and exposing old political cleavages threatening the nation's sovereign integrity.

    This has reversed the downward trend in Spanish interest rates, which until Tuesday had been falling since the ECB announced its revamped bond buying scheme last month. The Spanish 10-year bond jumped 0.26% in early Wednesday morning trading to break 6%, which is the biggest jump in yield for Spanish debt since August. Meanwhile, yesterday, the Spanish treasury was forced to pay investors a higher yield as it issued $5.2 billion in short term debt. The interest rate on three-month bills came in at 1.2%, which was significantly higher than the 0.9% it paid to issue similarly dated debt back in August.

    The ECB's unlimited bond buying plan has yet to take off as the various multi-billion dollar bailout schemes, which have already been approved by eurozone members, continue to linger in bureaucratic limbo (the ECB plans on using part of the bailout fund to help pay for its initial bond purchases). The ECB could intervene now, but that would mean it would be increasing the size of its already bloated balance sheet, something Mario Draghi, the head of the ECB, wants to avoid until the bailout fund is drained first.

    The bailout fund has already committed around 100 billion euros to Spain to help its crippled network of banks. The deal, agreed to earlier this summer, was extended to Spain initially without any preconditions or budgetary promises. But yesterday, that deal appeared to be in doubt as the finance ministers of Germany, the Netherlands and Finland issued a joint statement that individual nation states should bear the cost of recapitalizing their banking sector first before coming to the bailout trough.

    The timing of the announcement is no coincidence. On Thursday, the Spanish government will unveil its 2013 budget while on Friday the independent consulting firm of Oliver Wyman is set to release the final results of the stress test it conducted on Spanish banks. Germany seems to be sending a message that Spain's budget needs to incorporate some serious cuts if it plans on getting its 100 billion euros, despite the original agreement that they would get the money with no preconditions.

    Spain has set up a bailout fund for its 17 provincial governments totaling 18 billion euros, which is less than a third of the projected 60 billion euros needed to recapitalize its banks. If it has to use that money first, then Spain's provinces will see massive holes in their budgets next year. If it issues a lot of new debt, yields will rise to uncomfortably high levels. So coming up with the other 42 billion euros, possibly through further austerity measures, is simply impossible, especially given how poorly the Spanish economy is doing at the moment.