Finally, there is the question of whether ESM funding is adequate. Initially, European
leaders agreed that the ESM should be endowed with €80 billion in capital, of which €40
billion would be due in 2013 with the remainder to be phased in over the following three
years. This would have added €11 billion to the German government’s budget in 2013 and
was resisted by parliamentarians there who wanted to deliver a tax cut to their constituents
in advance of that year’s general election. The compromise offered by German Chancellor
Merkel was to stretch out the contribution over five years.
€80 billion is, in any case, a relatively modest sum in the present context – hardly
enough to fund the EU’s contribution to the Greek or Irish rescue. EU leaders recognized
that an effective emergency financing facility would have to have more resources at its
disposal, while at the same time acknowledging that it would be impossible to get these
past domestic parliaments and taxpayers. The solution was to endow the ESM with €700
billion of total capital, where in addition to the €80 billion actually paid in there would be
€620 billion of ‘callable capital’, which the fund will be able to ask shareholders to
provide as needed.
The problem with callable capital is that the more Member States that require ESM
assistance and hence the greater the need to call capital, the fewer states will be in a
position to provide it. Countries whose sovereign bonds have AAA ratings will only have
to provide guarantees for ESM borrowing, while countries with lower rating would have
to put up additional cash. This could transform the ESM into a transmission belt for
contagion: one country having to resort to the mechanism would heighten the likelihood
of other countries also in a marginal financial position having to put up cash, weakening
their own budgetary positions and heightening doubts about the sustainability of their own
debts. A solution to this problem would be to fully capitalize the ESM before such doubts
arise. Alternatively, countries with impeccable financial credentials could be relied on to
fund the mechanism. Once again, however, domestic politics is the obstacle to effective
collective action.