Ian Bremmer

A generation ago, the United States, Europe and Japan were the world’s powerhouses. Now, according to Eurasia Group’s Ian Bremmer, we’re living in a world where everyone – and anyone – can set the agenda. So, what does G-Zero mean for the world?

By Ian Bremmer
The opinions expressed are his own.

What we’re seeing in Europe — in rising Italian borrowing costs and the felling of two prime ministers — is the growing impatience of the markets for a resolution to the euro zone crisis. To put a finer point on it, the hive mind of the markets has decided it is not going to give Europe enough time to get its act together. The big institutions that drive the world’s economies are sitting on huge amounts of cash — enough to solve many of these problems overnight. But they have lost confidence in the ability of the European political system to deliver solutions that will work.

In a G-Zero world, where there is no strong global leader to direct the course of events, no one is interested in taking a flier on helping the Europeans get out of their mess. As the abortive G-20 conference showed last week, there is no backstop for any country or institution that makes an error in today’s environment, whether it’s tiny MF Global or the Chinese sovereign debt fund. In the postwar era, the Marshall Plan was the very definition of global security — it was a huge commitment by the U.S. to rebuild Europe into the economic force (and not incidentally, trading partner) that the world needed. Today, there is no Marshall plan for Europe, from within or without.

That’s the high-level view of the Europe situation. The question everyone wants answered is this: what happens next? Start with Greece: the best possible outcome for that country has happened with Papandreou’s resignation and the selection of economist Lucas Papademos as Prime Minister of an emergency government. Papademos is committed to remaining in the euro and accepting the terms of the Greek bailout package. Despite the roller coaster ride Papandreou took his country and the euro zone on, Greece has now moved closer to the Spanish and Portuguese models for avoiding the debt crisis drama. In Greece, a resolution is starting to be reached. It’s not the beginning of the end, but maybe this is the end of the beginning.

The same can’t be said for Italy as the situation changes by the day. The decisive Senate approval of a package of austerity measures (by a margin of 156 to 12) was one small step for Italy in the eyes of the markets— and a big step toward Silvio Berlusconi resigning his mandate.  It’s a wonder that Berlusconi held on to power for so long; he burned up his political capital years ago with scandals of all stripes. His stepping down is good news for Italy in the long run, but the handover of power to likely frontrunner Mario Monti is a delicate process that will have to be handled with tremendous care.  Unfortunately for Italy, political drama has insured it will face a higher and longer level of scrutiny.

Markets will continue to demand extensive and enforceable changes in spending levels throughout the peripheral states. When Italy and Greece look more like Spain and Portugal, the bond markets will treat them more like Spain and Portugal.  But that alone won’t solve the problem: investors are going to demand to know what happens next time any euro zone periphery country is on the brink of collapse. Euro zone institutions and politics have to be reshaped to prevent this type of crisis from ever happening again. Until this risk is mitigated, lending costs will stay high for a long time to come.

Case in point: I talked with about 200 international financial executives at a conference two weeks ago. 92 percent thought a “Lehman event” could easily happen once again somewhere in the world. Because we all thought the economy had been getting better over the last few years, we took our eye off the ball when it came to shoring up the global financial system and making the necessary structural fixes. In the U.S., President Obama took up health care. A weak Dodd-Frank bill passed. In the global financial system, Basel III has gone nowhere. And so every time the markets are rattled, we stare down the financial abyss, again and again.

I’m an optimist on the euro zone; I still don’t think it will fracture. The political will to stay together is too great; the mechanisms for countries to drop out are too complex and undeveloped. The institutions that compose it will get stronger — eventually. But that will be a long time from now. Until that day, we’re likely to see a lot of economist Joseph Schumpeter’s “creative destruction” — but as applied to financial systems, rather than corporations. Much of the financial edifice of the 20th century is yet to come crumbling down. To fully rebound from this era of crisis, more of it must.

This essay is based on a transcribed interview with Bremmer.

Photo: A man walks past signs that read, “For the good of Italy: Berlusconi resign” in Rome November 11, 2011. Former European Commissioner Mario Monti has emerged as favorite to replace Silvio Berlusconi as prime minister.

By Ian Bremmer
The opinions expressed are his own.

Nobody likes to be called PIIGS. For years, Europe’s so-called peripheral countries — Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain — have complained about this acronym, but the euro zone’s sovereign debt problems have only entrenched it further. Yet, it’s time to acknowledge that the PIIGS have a point. They don’t deserve to be lumped together. Their actions and their circumstances have sharply diverged over the past three years.

Some of the PIIGS, let’s call them peripherals, have accepted the need for painful austerity measures. Spain’s government beat its deficit reduction targets last year. That’s a result that should impress outsiders, including powerhouse Germany, where lawmakers have worked hard to persuade voters that profligate countries won’t be bailed out until they have proven they can mend their spendthrift ways. Protests against the belt-tightening have been limited and surprisingly peaceful given Spain 21% unemployment rate.

The conservative People’s Party, which has already pledged its commitment to both austerity and the euro zone, looks headed for a win in Spain’s November elections. That’s in part because Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero has pushed hard to implement so many of the plans called for by Germany and European institutions over the objections of his party’s political base, including a plan to amend Spain’s constitution to legally require both the central government and autonomous communities to meet deficit targets that go beyond the levels set by the EU.

Portugal is also making sacrifices, particularly on pensions, and its discipline has made a difference. Days ago, the IMF released another tranche of its bailout package for the country with a comment that Portugal’s strategy to bring its debt under control allows Portugal to “distinguish itself from other countries with a problem.”  Its government has also made solid progress on reforming state-owned companies, collecting taxes, and stabilizing banks.

Germany deserves some credit here. Chancellor Angela Merkel has proven willing to drive a hard bargain for longer than many expected, but Spain and Portugal know that Germany will be there in the end and agreed to take their medicine anyway. Ireland has little in common with the rest of this group, because its need for a rescue package comes from a banking crisis, not a fiscal crisis or an economy that can’t compete. Italy is also a special case, given that the sheer size of its debt — 1.9 trillion euros – represents a much greater long-term threat to the euro zone’s future.

Then there’s Greece, the only European country in full-on economic meltdown, where austerity measures don’t have broad support, and government and voters are sharply at odds over the country’s present and future. Greece isn’t about to leave the euro zone, but almost everything else is up for grabs. The Papandreou government is a spent political force, and its eventual demise, probably later this year, will leave a weak coalition government to try to manage public outrage and to kickstart an economy stuck in a ditch. Germany and the IMF can refuel the tank, but Greece is an automobile without an engine.

Each of these governments has its own problems, its own needs, its own chances of recovery, and its own impact on the rest of Europe. If the rest of us are to understand the threat that each of these problems poses for a common European future, we need to slaughter the PIIGS, not the country but the acronym.

This essay is based on a transcribed interview with Bremmer.

Photo: Euro coins from a starter kit are seen next to traditional Greek gyros food from a small Athenian restaurant named “Euro Lunch” December 17, 2001. [Greece's banks began distributing euro starter kits to the public amid queues and identification to buy the 5,000 drachmas ($13.23) kits.] REUTERS/Yiorgos Karahalis