Now the Franco-German question
作者：英國《金融時報》專欄作家菲利普•斯蒂芬斯
Germany will have to learn leadership, and France followship. Both will find it a wrenching experience. The rules of the European game changed for ever with the reunification of Germany. It has taken the euro crisis to spell out the brutal implications.
德國必須要學會領導，法國則必須學會追隨。兩國都會發現這是一段令人痛苦的過程。德國的統一永久性地改變了歐洲的遊戲規則。人們通過此次歐元危機，清楚地認識到了這種改變帶來的殘酷影響。
One has to feel some sympathy for Angela Merkel. Germany's chancellor has been excoriated in turn for absent and for oppressive leadership. At one moment she is said to be standing idly by while the euro burns, and at the next of issuing teutonic diktats about the terms of its survival. Germany, the rest of us have been reminded, has always been too big for Europe.
人們不得不對德國總理安格拉•默克爾(Angela Merkel)感到些許同情。默克爾因置身事外的態度和強勢的領導作風而備受指責。一分鐘前，人們還指責她在歐元陷入水深火熱之際袖手旁觀，一分鐘後，又指責她為紓困歐元製定日耳曼式的苛刻條款。這些批評聲音不斷提醒著我們，對歐洲而言，德國總是太大了。
The new German question asks whether Europe – whether it is the European Union or a more closely integrated eurozone – can find a new equilibrium now that Germany is so visibly the preponderant power. This in turn marks the return of the Franco-German question. Berlin is assuming the role of leader with a mixture of hesitancy and tetchiness. Paris will struggle mightily to accept the place of follower.
既然德國非常明顯的是主導力量，那麼新出現的德國問題關係到，歐洲——不管是歐盟(EU)還是一體化程度更高的歐元區——能否達到一種新的平衡。這實際上標誌著問題重新回到了法德關係上。德國帶著幾分猶豫和幾分急躁承擔著領導人的職責，法國則會強烈抵觸追隨者的角色。
The choreography is calculated to conceal this redistribution of power. The euro crisis has been cast as the Angela and Nicolas show – the German and French leaders smiling for the cameras at the Élysée; a jointly signed missive spelling out a euro rescue plan.
這種安排的宗旨是揭示權力的重新分配。歐元危機已經成為默克爾和法國總統尼古拉•薩科齊(Nicolas Sarkozy)兩人的秀場——兩國領導人在愛麗舍宮面對著鏡頭微笑，共同簽署歐元紓困計劃。
This is called keeping up appearances. For France, the survival of the euro is existential. Never mind the initial, enormous economic shock that would follow its failure. The break-up of monetary union would most likely see France slide into the continent's second division . Europe is the engine room of French power. Without it there would be nothing left of its global pretensions.
這就是所謂的裝點門面。對法國而言，歐元能否存續是一個關係到生死存亡的問題，更遑論歐元失敗後接踵而至的巨大的經濟衝擊。歐元區解體最有可能讓法國淪為歐洲大陸的二流國家。歐洲是法國能量的引擎。沒有歐洲，法國在全球就不會剩下多少話語權。
Mr Sarkozy, of course, has been fighting his corner – pressing for a Gaullist, intergovernmental arrangement rather than a leap to fiscal federalism. France has been attuned to the danger of Berlin's habit of elevating the avoidance of moral hazard above restoring confidence in financial markets .
當然，薩科齊一直在維護自己的主張——呼籲推行戴高樂主義式的政府間合作，而不是大躍進至財政聯盟。德國習慣於將避免道德風險置於恢復金融市場信心之上，法國也已經習慣於這種風險。
In the end, however, Berlin has prevailed. As Charles Grant of the Centre for European Reform has observed, the proposals for a stability union presented to the Brussels summit were essentially written in Germany, even if the odd page was edited in Paris.
然而，德國最終佔據了上風。正如歐洲改革中心(Centre for European Reform)的查爾斯•格蘭特(Charles Grant)所言，提交至布魯塞爾峰會的建立“穩定聯盟”的提案基本上是德國編寫的，儘管有幾頁法國進行了校訂。
Assuming (perhaps foolishly) agreement at the summit, the present approach should secure a second chance for the euro: the more so if it provides cover for decisive intervention in the markets by the European Central Bank. But for the very reason it has been written in Germany, the strategy fails to offer a sustainable long-term answer.
如果能在峰會上達成一致（這樣想或許很愚蠢），當前的做法應該會為歐元提供第二次機會：如果它為歐洲央行(ECB)果斷干預市場提供掩護，就更會如此。但考慮到該提案是在德國編寫的，這一策略未能提供一個可持續的長期解決方案。
The economic argument at the heart of all this never really changes. Instead it returns again and again to the disagreement that surfaced nearly 70 years ago among policymakers at Bretton Woods.
所有這些問題的核心經濟論點從未真正改變過。實際上，它一次又一次地回到近70年前布雷頓森林(Bretton Woods)會議上政策制定者的分歧之上。
In 1944 John Maynard Keynes argued forcefully that the planned new exchange rate regime required symmetrical obligations on creditor and debtor countries to deal with any imbalances. If the system was to endure, austerity on one side had to be balanced by growth on the other.
1944年，約翰•梅納德•凱恩斯(John Maynard Keynes)極力主張，擬議中的新匯率體制需要債權國和債務國對半分擔解決一切失衡問題的責任。這種體制要想持續下去，一方的緊縮必須由另一方的增長來平衡。
Keynes lost the argument then, but governments have been returning to it ever since. During the 1980s it was at the heart of economic discord between the US on one side and Germany and Japan on the other. It runs through today's trade tensions between Washington and Beijing.
當時人們沒有接受凱恩斯的觀點，但自那以後各國政府一直在重新提起這種觀點。上世紀80年代，這是美國與德日經濟紛爭的核心所在，現在則貫穿於美中之間的各種貿易紛爭當中。
The big irony, though, is that this very same debate was present at the creation of the single currency. François Mitterrand's effort at the start of the 1980s to pursue an expansionary economic policy ended in humiliation when Helmut Kohl made fiscal rigour the price of the franc's continued place in the European exchange rate system. France resolved never again.
然而，最為諷刺的是，在單一貨幣體系創立的問題上，也有過一模一樣的辯論。上世紀80年代初，法國前總統弗朗索瓦•密特朗(François Mitterrand)努力推行擴張性的經濟政策，這一努力最終以蒙羞的失敗告終，因為德國前總理赫爾穆特•科爾(Helmut Kohl)要求法國推行緊縮的財政政策，以換取法郎保留在歐洲匯率體系中的位置。法國從此一蹶不振。
The outcome was the “franc fort” policy and a push to share economic decision-making between Germany and France. Once the D-Mark had been subsumed in a single currency, the austerity versus growth argument would finally be settled. That was the theory .
於是就有了“強勢法郎政策”的出台，以及推動德法共享經濟決策權的努力。一旦德國馬克加入單一貨幣體系，有關緊縮對增長的爭論就會最終得到解決。這就是當時的理論。
Germany is now within reach of the political integration it sought as a counterpart to monetary union when the euro was established. The danger is an assumption in Berlin that the new structure can be built to an entirely German design.
歐元創立之初，德國就希望建立一個政治同盟，與貨幣同盟相對應，如今，這一願望已不再遙不可及。然而，德國政府認為，新的政治結構可以完全由德國來設計，這種想法十分危險。
Ms Merkel's stability union will endure only if it acknowledges that Keynes was more than half-right. Any supranational scheme, whether enshrined in treaty or otherwise, that condemns much of Europe to indefinite austerity will not survive the realities of national politics.
除非承認凱恩斯的理論基本正確，否則默克爾的“穩定聯盟”不可能持久。面對各國國內政治的現實，任何迫使歐洲大部分國家無限期實行緊縮政策的超國家計劃都不可能維持下去——即使有條約或別的形式做保證也不行。
If German leadership is to avoid being oppressive, it must recognise that fiscal union cannot be a one-sided affair. It was encouraging this week to hear Ms Merkel talk about the competitiveness problems in the weaker eurozone economies. It would be more so were she to talk about formulating a strategy for growth.
如果德國想讓大家心服口服地聽自己的，它必須認識到：財政聯盟必須不偏不倚。本週，默克爾談到了歐元區較弱經濟體的競爭力問題，這令人鼓舞。如果她能夠談一談制定促進增長策略的問題，那將更加令人鼓舞。
For its part, France must begin to reimagine the political geography of Europe. The Franco-German relationship will always be a pivotal one, but it is now unequivocally unequal. Paris needs friends beyond Berlin – in Warsaw, Rome and Madrid. If Britain's Tory party were ever to leave behind its European nightmare, there would also be a case to revive the old entente.
就法國而言，它必須開始重新設想歐洲的地緣政治形勢。法德關係將永遠是最重要的關係，但如今這種關係已變得明顯不平等了。巴黎需要在柏林以外尋找新的盟友——在華沙、羅馬和馬德里。如果有朝一日英國的保守黨決定擺脫自己在歐陸的噩夢，或許法國也可以與其恢復以往的同盟關係。
Radoslaw Sikorski, Poland's foreign minister, recently told an audience in Berlin that the big threat to Europe came not from German power but from German inactivity. Given the two countries' history, that was a pretty brave thing to say. Few would dispute that the survival of the euro now rests with German leadership. There must be more to that leadership, though, than the promise of austerity.
波蘭外長拉多斯瓦夫•西科爾斯基(Radoslaw Sikorski)最近在柏林發表了這樣的言論：歐洲面臨的一大威脅，不是德國的權力，而是德國的不作為。考慮到兩國的歷史淵源，發表這番言論需要相當的勇氣。歐元的存亡如今有賴於德國的領導，這一點基本毋庸置疑。然而，德國的領導必須帶來更多的東西，而不只是緊縮承諾。
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