Friday, September 21, 2012

A rock they don't want to lift

Reuters story says that US politics is setting the timeline on when we get the next EU/ECB/IMF report on Greece --

"The Obama administration doesn't want anything on a macroeconomic scale that is going to rock the global economy before November 6," a senior EU official told Reuters, adding that previous troika reports had also slipped ...A U.S. official said the United States had made clear to European officials that it wanted to avoid any "downside" economic surprises because of the fragile U.S. recovery, but denied that it had anything to do with the U.S. election. Several sources in Germany described those conversations with their U.S. counterparts and said the message had been that the Americans didn't want surprises before the election ... But one source said EU leaders' motives went beyond macroeconomic stability. They also had political reasons to avoid rocking the boat before the U.S. election. "As far as European leaders are concerned, they don't want Romney, so they're probably willing to do anything to help Obama's chances," said the source, an EU official involved in finding solutions to the debt crisis. The problem for Obama is that if Europe's leaders are seen, implicitly or otherwise, to be working to bolster his re-election chances, it could provide ammunition for the Romney campaign. European leaders have repeatedly been accused of acting too slowly and in a confused way to resolve the crisis, with a knock-on negative impact on the United States. If they are now seen to be allying with Obama, it could dent his popularity.

It may be true. But it's a strangely written story. From anonymous quotes to outright political speculation at the end. Nice job of the reporters buying a few pints for whoever the talkative official was.

But anyway, is it that the EU is under orders from the White House to delay this report-to-end-all-reports, or is it that they already know what's going to be in the report -- Greece needs billions more in aid -- and are looking for any excuse not to lob that political bomb into European, not American, politics?