Second, the financial tensions led to a disruption of domestic financial intermediation, with severe consequences for both private and public financing. In Greece, the banks – which were reasonably strong in a “stand-alone” sense – were undone by revelations about the weakness of public finances. In Ireland, causation ran in the opposite direction: the bloated and failing domestic banking system imposed an intolerable burden on what, prior to the crisis, had been a superficially strong fiscal position. Regardless of the causation, the consequences were the same: as confidence eroded, the inflow of foreign capital dried up. Subject to a “sudden stop” in external financing, 4 the European sovereign debt crisis – itself inextricably linked with problems in the financial sector – erupted, forcing Greece and Ireland to seek financial assistance from the European Union and IMF. 3. What can we learn from the emerging market crises of the past thirty years? The developments I have just described might give those of you living in emerging economies a sense of déjà vu. And indeed it has become commonplace to draw comparisons between recent events in Europe and the periodic financial crises seen in emerging market economies (EMEs) over the past three decades: Latin America’s debt crisis in the 1980s; the Mexican tequila crisis of 1994; the Asian financial crisis in the second half of the 1990s; and the Argentine crisis of 2001. Extensive economic literature has analysed these events and identified important roles for many of the phenomena I have just described.
Of course, greater economic integration in Europe has been accompanied by greater institutional cooperation. Although now supplemented by the (still untested) Chiang Mai Initiative, the framework for economic policy cooperation in Asia involves less deep and intense collaboration than in the European Union. The single monetary policy in the euro area is the acme of Europe’s economic integration. And the situation in the 1990s in Asia was much less developed than now. Several Asian countries (notably Malaysia at an early stage) introduced capital controls in the face of the financial crisis, something which cannot be done in Europe given the depth of financial integration and the commitments made to the free movement of capital within the Single Market in the EU Treaties. 4. Policy responses to the crises  The much deeper set of economic and institutional linkages within the EU and euro area today compared with those that existed in Asia in the mid-1990s has important implications for the policy responses. In particular, the lack of a regional framework in Asia placed the responsibility for addressing the financial crisis in the 1990s immediately and squarely on the international financial institutions, notably the IMF. By contrast, the close cooperation between EU countries has meant that the IMF has played a less prominent role in the recent crisis, even though it makes a significant contribution to the design and implementation of the adjustment programmes implemented in Greece and Ireland.