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Prominent German economist Hans-Werner Sinn: So, will Angela Merkel, once safely re-elected as German Chancellor, be prepared to provide the leadership necessary to save monetary union? Jeremy Warner, Telegraph 25 Apr In passing, Schauble also hit out at Jose Manual Barroso , saying the eurozone problems had nothing to do with strict budget rules.
Nu trillar polletten ner German Chancellor Angela Merkel: On the other hand, Germany would need a higher interest rate because savings are currently losing value," Expatica. The one-size-fits-all monetary policy needed in a currency area of twelve countries is inflicting particular damage on Germany, the biggest economy in Europe. The Economist, June 9, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle maintained Germany's position, warning against a move away from austerity.
German power does not flow from the euro. German weight and geography vexed the continent even before the principalities of the Holy Roman Empire were soldered together by Otto von Bismarck. Unification, and then reunification, turned the German question — how to balance a nation too big for its neighbourhood — into the abiding dilemma of European geopolitics. The criticism of Germany that sticks is about the self-righteous assumption that all will be well only when feckless Greeks, Spanish, Italians and the rest behave like Germans.
For others to cut their deficits, Germany must shed some of its surplus. Germany laid down a big barrier on the fast track to European banking union, insisting a revision of EU treaties is necessary to create a single authority to wind up banks, even if it took several years to accomplish. Financial Times, April 14, Germany is not to blame for unpopular reforms; these are necessary for economic survival in a single currency that eliminates the options of independent monetary policy and currency devaluation. The Economist print 13 April Lew, to persuade Europe to consider shifting its focus from budget balance to growth highlighted a deep trans-Atlantic policy gulf New York Times, 9 April Angela Merkel draws lines in the sand; then she vacates them, breaks a few treaties, and lets the European Central Bank take over, though Mario Draghi, its president, is demonstratively dragging his heels.
Eurozone sovereigns will emphatically not be bailed out by their fellow governments following solemn announcements. Totally different, you see. John Dizard, Financial Times March 8, By now it has become ever more clear that euro area policy is to make sure absolutely nothing happens until after the German elections in September John Dizard, Financial Times 16 December One of my colleagues studied in Germany, has extensive, high level political and economic contacts there, and reads the press daily. He is not prone to overstatement or overreaction and also has a propensity to makes Delphic remarks.
He said the Eurozone is over. In pretty much those words, a simple sentence, no caveats or conditionals. I nearly fell out of my chair. A new party led by economists, jurists, and Christian Democrat rebels will kick off this week, calling for the break-up of monetary union before it can do any more damage. The old parties are used up.
They stubbornly refuse to admit their mistakes. The French are not among them. The borders run along the ancient line of cleavage dividing Latins from Germanic tribes. The plans draw on work by Hans-Olaf Henkel, former head of Germany's industry federation BDI and a chastened europhile -- the "worst error of my professional life", he told me.
Should she sign off on a bail-out out for Cyprus -- safeguarding the "dirty funds of Russian oligarchs", as the AfD puts it -- she will be raked by heavy fire. That will test her solidarity mantra, and she can turn on a Pfennig. She ditched her nuclear energy policy days after surveying the post-Fukushima polls. It all started in early , when Ms Merkel suggested Greece leave the eurozone. After Nicolas Sarkozy threatened her with ending the special French-German relationship, she gave in and helped to bail out Greece. That turned out to be a bailout of French banks. Before the crisis, Germans were the most admired Europeans in Greece, today, they are the most hated.
Ekot 30 augusti Germany's mainstream parties remain solidly pro-euro despite grumbling over costly bailouts of Greece and others. A German taboo on nationalism, rooted in atonement for the crimes of the Nazi era, has helped to muffle eurosceptic voices. Anti-euro political parties in Europe in recent years have so far tended to be either well to the right of center or, as evidenced by the recent vote in Italy, anything but staid.
But in Germany, change may be afoot. A new party is forming this spring.
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And its founders are a collection of some of the country's top economists and academics. Der Spiegel 8 March The government is depriving voters of a voice through disinformation, is pressuring constitutional organs, like parliament and the Constitutional Court, and is making far-reaching decisions in committees that have no democratic legitimacy. Germany has a new anti-euro party Die Welt has the details of a new anti-euro party that has established itself ahead of the September elections.
This group includes a number of economists and legal scholars who are quite well known in Germany. Eurointelligence 4 March The party will formally be established April 13 with three political priorities: The turmoil produced by the Italian elections has directed attention back to where it should have been all along — to the politics of the eurozone crisis.
It is possible that southern Europe will give the Germans until the autumn to come around to a new approach. But toleration for austerity is unlikely to last much beyond then. Europe may be approaching a stark choice: The German government is now resigned to accepting an aid package for Cyprus without a default, From the story it becomes clear that they have not got a clue how to do this. The pressure is increased because the danger in Cyprus is not an imminent collapse of the state, but a collapse of the banks, which are running out of funding.
Eurointelligence 22 February German President Joachim Gauck First and foremost, he said, Europe needed to develop a common identity. Citizens feel powerless, helpless and oftentimes ignored. Franco-German Divide Nears Record High We ask - rhetorically once again - how can they expect to hold this together with a single monetary policy. Tyler Durden 22 February Berlusconi says Merkel is an "intelligent bureaucrat" tied to the notion of a centralized economy.
He disagrees with the notion that the fiscal compact was designed to shore up the common currency. He said the Fiscal Compact imposes a shoe size 42 for men and 40 for women. This is why he says he wants to renegotiate the entire Compact if elected. Eurointelligence 19 February Gloomsters buried the euro too soon The turning point came when Chancellor Angela Merkel concluded that a eurozone collapse would risk the break-up of the EU.
Philip Stephens, FT January 31, It is worth exploring where the pessimists went wrong. The obvious mistake was to underestimate the political will of European leaders to keep the show on the road. For the rest it is a political project — the guarantor of Franco-German reconciliation, of freedom in the former dictatorships of left and right, and of a European voice in a world where power is fast heading east.
The turning point came when Chancellor Angela Merkel concluded that a eurozone collapse would risk the break-up of the EU. Germany would lose the strategic framework for its security and prosperity. Ms Merkel decided during the late summer that it was too risky to allow Greece to leave. At about the same time, she sided with the European Central Bank against the Bundesbank. Once the ECB had positioned itself as lender of first resort, the markets were left stranded on the wrong side of an unwinnable fight.
IMF managing director Christine Lagarde said that Europe needed a plan for growth - short and long term. It wasn't enough, she said, paraphrasing Chancellor Angela Merkel, to say "we have solved all of our economic problems, now we just have to wait seven years to see the effects". The ECB's Mario Draghi has taken the risk of a sovereign default in Spain and Italy off the table, but he has not restored these countries to economic viability within a D-Mark currency bloc, and nor can he.
Take a moment to read Eurozone crisis: Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, January 23rd, One picture sums it up: Merkel's Christian Democratic Union CDU has now lost its majority in the upper house of the German parliament, the Bundesrat, which could make it harder for Merkel to introduce policies in the federal parliament without compromising with opposition parties, Newton told CNBC. CNBC 21 Jan Ambrose Evans-Pritchard AEP increasingly faces the risk of running out of hyperbolic war-analogies sooner than the euro collapses. Detlev Schlichter, 11 December The German government says these proposals go too far.
Eurointelligence 7 December Ekot 2 december IMF wants Greece's creditors to forgive a portion of the country's debt, a move which could cost Germany up to It is partly for that reason that euro-zone finance ministers are in favor of extending by two years the deadline for Greece to reduce its debt load to percent of GDP from to Der Spiegel, 14 November The IMF believes that the only way Greece can reduce its sovereign debt to the target level of percent of gross domestic product in the next decade is by way of another partial default.
This time, however, it wouldn't just be private creditors who would lose out as they did in the debt haircut carried out this spring. A second such cut of Greek debt would force international creditors, Germany included, to write down a portion of the billions they have loaned Athens. With general elections approaching next year, Chancellor Angela Merkel is adamantly opposed to such a move. But if its governance structure prevents Germany heading off banking crises that Germans must nonetheless pay for, unhappiness will turn into fury.
Consider the anger of Americans and Britons about bailouts for plutocratic bankers. Now imagine their feelings if the bankers were foreign.
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Sebastian Mallaby, Financial Time, November 13, The Political Economics of the Euro. This is what happens in the United Kingdom, where Wales and Scotland are the recipients of English largesse. Germany has had its own recent experience with a transfer union. Edward Chancellor, Financial Times, 4 November Will those IOUs ever be honoured? That is the problem with trying to grow through unbalanced trade. In the end, your trade partners need something to pay you with. Roger Bootle, Telegraph 7 October From the formation of the euro in to now, German unit labour costs have hardly risen.
Since costs have continued rising briskly elsewhere, Germany has gained competitiveness enormously. The result is now a surplus of exports over imports of about 6pc of GDP. It is this surplus — and the associated income and jobs — that defenders of the status quo say would be threatened without the euro. The explanation is clear. Whereas consumer spending has grown by about 30pc in America and the UK, in Germany it has grown by only 10pc. The reason is that over the last 13 years, German workers' average real incomes have fallen by 4pc. The very success in keeping costs down has also kept pay down.
If, one way or another, the link between Germany and the southern euro member countries is broken, a return to the days of the deutschemark. By reducing the domestic price of exports and imports, a stronger currency would transfer income from producers to consumers. The result would be increased consumption. If Germany left the euro, not only would the peripheral countries be better off, but so also would Germany.
Der Spiegel 11 September I admire Chancellor Merkel for her leadership qualities, but she is leading Europe in the wrong direction. Der Spiegel, 13 February Certainly, for anyone with a sense of history, the sight of the German representative on the ECB being isolated and outvoted should be chilling.
Since , the central idea of the European project was never again to leave a powerful and aggrieved Germany isolated at the centre of Europe. Gideon Rachman, Financial Times, September 10, At Jackson Hole, Mr Weidmann refused to comment on these reports, which presumably means they must be true. If he did resign, it would be the third such German walk out over ECB bond buying after Jurgen Stark, who resigned late last year, and before him, Axel Weber, who was equally unable to contain his contempt for the practice. It's plainly intolerable that perfectly solvent Italian households and businesses should be forced to pay much higher real rates of interest than their German counterparts.
Such discrimination only hardwires national differences in competitiveness into the euro area. It follows that Mr Draghi must urgently apply monetary stimulus in the form of bond buying to the parts of the eurozone economy that need it. To hell with Mr Weidmann's objections. What's Germany going to do if Mr Weidmann is defied?
Come to think of it…. Daily Telegraph 31 August Quite why gold bugs think that the Gold Standard prevents asset bubbles and excess debt is beyond me. It is very similar to what occurred in our own Noughties up to As Paul Krugman says, Europe has replicated the worst features of interwar Gold with monetary union. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, August 29th, France and the US both undervalued on s gold had to flood the deficit countries with loans to offset their trade surpluses.
When they cut off those loans — as Germany has cut off loans to Spain today — the result was violent economic contraction in Germany. EMU is a D-mark peg instead of a dollar peg. The mechanism of debt-deflation torture for entire societies is much the same. The European Central Bank plans to resume buying the bonds of crisis-hit countries on a large scale.
Jens Weidmann, head of the German central bank, is firmly opposed to the idea, arguing that it will lead to inflation and lessen pressure on governments to carry out reforms. In one corner, we have Jens Weidmann, the head of Germany's Bundesbank, who warned in Der Spiegel on Sunday that "central bank financing can become addictive like a drug. Weidmann as one of the chief critics of a new round of ECB bond buying. Asmussen made the opposite case in a speech in Hamburg, arguing that high government bond yields in Spain and Italy were preventing the bank's monetary policy from filtering down to businesses and consumers in those countries.
Frankfurt Wall Street Journal, August 23, Perhaps Merkel wants to grant Greece additional help until she's survived Germany's elections. Eurozone countries won't let Greece go broke. At least not this time. Gigantic sums are being handled here in a completely hasty and irresponsible manner, and there is no reasonable justification whatsoever for these subsidies for the banks. I think most scientists and experts agree that there will only be two solutions in the end. The one coherent solution is abandoning the currency union, but maintaining the EU.
That means that every country would have its own currency again, just like we did up until ten years ago. The other coherent solution would be a European federal state in Brussels which would create taxation laws, social legislation and other important financial legislation. That kind of federal state with a uniform legislation could work.
Just how democratic it would be is a different question. Two hundred economists protested in an open letter to German citizens. Even the German constitutional court believes that enough is enough. Remember that after the tsunami hit Japan, it took Ms Merkel just a few days to abandon her energy policy and announce a departure from nuclear energy altogether.
In the early s, Germany was struggling to adhere to euro-zone criteria aimed at ensuring common currency stability. New documents show just how key his role was in weakening the Stability Pact. Der Spiegel, 16 July Europe is in more danger than at any time since the s.
Ciao, America!: An Italian Discovers the U.S.
I believe that the dominant form of political organisation over the next decade will be nationalism. We are one charismatic leader away from a complete re-ordering of the continent. Thomas Pascoe, Telegeraph July 13th, The problem with reparations, halted under the Nazi Party in , was not that the Germans were unable to pay a debt which amounted to 83pct of GDP in Instead, it was that neither Germany nor pre-Anschluss Austria recognised the "war guilt" clause in the Treaty of Versailles which justified such payments.
Not only did the debtors believe the debts unjust, so did the creditors. Sophisticated opinion in Britain, shared by Cabinet ministers and Keynes, held that the peace terms were unduly harsh on the Germans and would cause unnecessary deprivation. This combination of stubbornness and sympathy ensured that when debts eventually went unpaid, no nation intervened to support the existing financial system. It was another way of saying never.
Wolfgang Munchau, Financial Times July 1, Merkel has led the euro zone one more step along the path toward a pooling of debt, an IOU-nion This is not the first time that Merkel has surrendered what had been repeatedly heralded as Germany's final line in the sand. Every step of the campaign to rescue the euro over the last two years has gone from being a taboo to a done-deal that triggers massive public outrage.
Indeed, one could even go further and say that the entire history of European integration has been a series of broken taboos Der Spiegel, 29 June Ever since the World Cup in , collective national euphoria during major soccer championships has been part of German life. That's also true with Euro Some see the beginnings of a disturbing nationalism.
Deutsche Welle 24 June German flags draped from windows, people ardently belting out the national anthem with one hand laid over their hearts: And many still say that in light of the country's past, it's not appropriate to feel and display national pride. Dom vill inte bli en provins i ett nytt Romar-rike dom heller. The most important thing is that we create a fiscal union, one in which the nation states give up their jurisdiction in terms of fiscal policy.
If we had always said we would only take steps toward integration if they would immediately work percent, we would never have advanced by so much as a meter. It almost sounds as if you had longed for the crisis so that you could finally correct the birth defects of the euro. Well, it isn't quite that bad. But the more people see what's at stake, the more they are willing to draw the right consequences. It was inevitable that, for such a bold and unprecedented project, in some countries even the most virtuous ones , mistakes would be made and unforeseeable events occur.
Nils Lundgren 24 oktober Rolf Englund 20 januari The small number of intelligent officials and the economic elite understand what is at stake, but are willing to take the risk of an accident. The preservation of the euro is not their primary objective. When Otmar Issing, the former chief economist of the European Central Bank, categorically rejects any form of debt mutualisation, as he did in a recent newspaper article, he omits to mention what would happen if the government were to follow his advice.
The eurozone would break up. Wolfgang Munchau, Financial Times 24 June Kommentar av Rolf Englund: Eurointelligence Daily Briefing Charlemagne, The Economist print, June 16th We will know one way or the other within days. EU leaders have a summit meeting scheduled at the end of the month Clive Crook, Bloomberg, June 20, During the G20 meeting, Merkel -- together with Hollande, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti -- were on the hot seat, forced to explain to the rest of the world exactly how they planned to finally bring Europe's enormous debt problems under control.
And they had to promise to do even more to save the euro than they have already. Der Spiegel 20 June G20 sources suggested that Angela Merkel was preparing to allow eurozone institutions to begin buying bonds issued by member state's governments. The purpose of the intervention would be to bring down sovereign bond yields of weaker eurozone states The Independent 20 June However, a German government spokesman insisted last night that there had been "no change" in Berlin's position on the use of the funds of the eurozone bailout funds.
The announcement of these new measures could come at a meeting of the eurozone powers that will be hosted by the Italian Prime Minister, Mario Monti, in Rome on Friday. In their closing statement, the eurozone countries promised to take whatever measures necessary to maintain the stability and integrity of the region and to keep financial markets functioning.
Robert Shapiro, a former US undersecretary for commerce, said it was market pressure that would lead to a change of tack in Europe - particularly when it comes to German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Shapiro, who served under former US President Bill Clinton and is currently an advisor to Obama, said the G20 summit was successful because the chancellor altered her position. Deutsche Welle, 20 June For her part, Merkel said the message to take away from Los Cabos was that the eurozone nations gave their political support to the shared currency.
She said discussions took place concerning a "European institution that would embody the supervision of banks" and "more measures for growth, the adoption of guidelines for shared standards for deposit guarantees and bank reorganization. The marriage may have been foolish. But a divorce would be terrifying. It is against this background that we must assess the views of the dominant partner: They would make mediocrity the yardstick for Europe. We would thus be forced to abandon our goal of maintaining prosperity in the face of international competition.
To all this she added: In sum, she made three crucial points: In an apparent reference to the proposed euro bonds, Merkel said that seemingly simple "collectivization ideas" are actually "unconstitutional and completely counterproductive. Systemic reforms will be needed, including some mutualisation of debts and a move towards a banking union, with euro-wide oversight and responsibility for banks The Ecoonomist print 16 June It's hard to know whether to laugh or cry. Every week, seemingly, brings some new miracle cure, some further quack remedy, produced as if from the back of a lorry, which promises finally to fix the eurozone debt crisis once and for all.
A little while back, it was eurobonds, then it was European Central Bank intervention in sovereign bond markets, followed by project bonds, use of European bail-out funds for direct recapitalisation of struggling periphery banks, and so on. Jeremy Warner, Telegraph 13 June The favoured fix du jour is that of rapid progression to a fully-fledged banking union, or federal banking system — a plan which the European Commission seems to think it could have up and running by the beginning of next year.
This one lasted even less time than the others before being shot down in flames by the big wigs of Berlin and Frankfurt. Jeff Randall, Daily Telgraph 25 June Confounded by events and discredited by outcomes, those who urged us to believe that political firepower would abolish financial gravity inside the eurozone are now tormented by their own hubris. Yet rather than confess to intellectual shortcomings, they thrash about for scapegoats. In a league table of financial fantasies, the euro is right up there with Tulipomania and the South Sea Bubble. The dream of a United States of Europe has turned into a nightmare, but confronting reality is too terrifying for them to contemplate.
In the absence of voter approval for irreversible fiscal union and a perpetual conveyor belt of taxpayer funding from Stuttgart to Salonika, how does the euro survive? Om bara inte Stalin hade kommit Rolf Englund 21 oktober National governments need to surrender sovereignty to the European center, Merkel says, so that democratic accountability is restored and proper standards of governance can be maintained. Perhaps she imagines that this new political union would put Germany in command. Assuming non-Germans would be allowed to vote, Germany would be less in command than now. Clive Crook, Bloomberg June 13, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, 13 June Countries sticking to reforms are engulfed by forces beyond their control.
A Germany that would drown in debt because it takes liabilities as a result of an ill-conceived sense of solidarity will provoke the rage of its citizens and alienate them even further from the European idea as is unfortunately already the case now. The demands being made of the German government spring from a sincere desire to avoid a rerun of the s, when economic disaster provoked political catastrophe.
However, while these demands may make economic sense, they are politically unrealistic and dangerous. They are textbook solutions that fail the real-world test. Worse, if enacted, they would risk provoking the very political radicalisation they are ultimately meant to prevent. Gideon Rachman, Financial Times 11 June Once you take a big step towards the mutualisation of debt across Europe, you are forced towards much deeper political union.
To avoid bitter disputes over fairness, you would also need to harmonise European social-security systems.
The Merkel government is not ruling out eurozone bonds or EU deposit insurance for ever. It is arguing that any such moves can come only as part of a bigger project — the formation of a political union. A recent Pew opinion poll showed strong majorities across Europe against ceding national sovereignty over budgetary matters to a central authority.
Barroso pushes EU banking union All 27 EU countries should submit their big banks to a single cross-border supervisor as part of a banking union to be enacted as soon as next year Financial Times, 11 June The Econoomist print 9 June A Sneak Peek at Tomorrow's Europe - the abyss is no longer very far away Politics is a strange business, and one of its premier oddities is that monumental changes are rarely heralded by great speeches.
Chancellor Angela Merkel in recent weeks has revealed just such a change in tone. The chancellor is not a master of the apocalypse in the vein of Green Party patriarch Joschka Fischer, who pronounced earlier this month that "the European house is in flames. That is hardly Merkel-esque locution, but she is fully aware that the abyss is no longer very far away. It would be the beginning of the United States of Europe. Germany would have to take on additional risks within the euro zone.
In return, southern Europeans would have to grant Brussels control over their national budgets -- according to German principles. It would be an experiment with uncertain results. It could, in the end, be the savior of the common European currency -- or it could mean the implosion of Europe. Such a plan could very well calm international financial markets. But it could also be that Europeans wouldn't accept it. Still, it might be the last chance to prevent a collapse of the euro.
Treaty change The last big rewrite took the best part of a decade: Much of the euro zone is in a deep and prolonged recession, and Eurosceptic parties of many stripes are on the rise in both north and south. Charlemagne, The Economist print Apr 27th A common safety net is another essential element. This would involve common deposit insurance and common backstop. The other union Europe needs to contemplate is fiscal union.
That will surely take time, and further discussion by members to choose the precise end point. We must complete the unfinished business of economic and monetary union EMU Common and more integrated supervision is the first step towards a banking union. Moreover, it is the start of something much bigger. Project Syndicate, 29 augusti Under a mandate from the EU heads of states and governments, the European Commission will shortly unveil proposals for the creation of a Europe-wide supervisory system for banks. This new supervisor is widely expected to be housed at the European Central Bank.
Setting up such a system will be no simple undertaking and doing so within a reasonable timeframe will require not just hard work but also courage, for it implies a big step towards more European integration — a genuine transfer of sovereignty and a significant strengthening of European institutions.
The centrepiece of the rule book — the translation of the Basel III capital requirements for banks into European law, also known as CRD IV — is still being negotiated between the member states and the European parliament. Officials cautioned that the legislation was still being drafted and would not be formally unveiled by Mr Barroso until his state of the union address on September To become law, it must be approved by all 27 EU heads of government ; commission officials hope they will agree at an EU summit before the end of the year. It is politically impossible to propose that now.
But some day there will be a crisis and new instruments will be created. Berlin is happy to talk about everything in general and vague terms, but refuses point blank to be drawn in on any commitments beyond we wonder why. The government is also angry that van Rompuy has taken over many elements of the proposals from the European Commission last week. The article says that a firm commitment towards these goals would trigger a dynamic that might be difficult to get under control.
Berlin does not want to address the issues, including treaty change, until The three stages outlined by the proposal are the completion of the existing legislation in and , including on banking union and Basel III. The second stage is a common bank resolution administration and a common resolution fund — but the article said a common deposit insurance has been dropped.
A third stage includes changes to the European Treaties, with the setup of a common fiscal capacity. In the nine-page paper, seen by The Daily Telegraph, Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council — the monthly summits of EU leaders — charts a series of steps from ongoing financial reforms to overall political union for the eurozone.
Daily Telegraph 5 December The treaty would pave the way for deeper European integration and would create a new legal foundation for the bloc. Der Spiegel 27 augusti A date for the beginning of the convention is expected to be fixed at an EU summit in December. When Merkel previously brought up the subject during a December EU summit meeting, many people reacted with indignation. Initially, the other EU countries were unwilling to go along with the calls from Merkel and then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy for automatic sanctions for repeat offenders of budget rules.
In the end, the Germans and French found a common position, saying they would push forward with a new EU treaty -- either with the entire bloc or with the 17 members of the euro zone if other countries were unwilling to go along with it. That's how the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag described it this weekend. According to the paper, Van Rompuy, Manuel Barroso,Juncker and Draghi were all working behind the scenes on a master plan. But it turns out the grand plan is not all that secret. At the last European summit on May 23, the four were explicitly given the task of finding a permanent solution to the crisis by the end of this month.
Deutsche Welle June 6 He said that the crisis had exposed the inadequacy of the financial and economic framework set up for the monetary union before it was launched in Only gradually did it become clear how dramatic this statement was: Full text Die Welt 3 Juni Financial Times December 14, The next stage in the crisis will be blatant blackmail.
With their refusal to accept money from the bailout fund to recapitalize their banks, the Spanish are not far from causing the entire system to explode. Jan Fleischhauer, Der Spiegel 8 June For Germany, being part of the European Union has always included an element of blackmail. France has been playing this card from the beginning, but now the Spanish and the Greeks have mastered the game. They're banking on Berlin losing its nerve. Indeed, only political simpletons assume that when people in Madrid, Rome or Paris talk about Europe, they really mean the European Union.
Black is a reference to the political color of Chancellor Angela Merkel's political party, the center-right Christian Democratic Union. Nej till en europeisk bankakut. Peter Wolodarski, Dagens Nyheter 3 juni Is the euro entering the end game? World Bank head Robert Zoellick argued that it is almost time to "break the glass" on the emergency alarm. Such sentiments about the dangers currently facing the European common currency are hardly new. But this week, concern at the highest levels appears to be slowly morphing into panic.
Der Spiegel 1 June Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti also got into the act on Thursday by demanding that the euro backstop fund, the European Stability Mechanism ESM , be allowed to provide fresh capital directly to struggling European banks, a move that Germany has strictly opposed thus far. They would enjoy an immediate 30pc cost advantage thanks to devaluation, which would jump start growth Germany would probably be forced to adopt its own stimulus measures to boost consumer spending at home A smaller German surplus and more inflation would result, but that's no disaster, even for Germans.
Damian Reece, Telegraph 31 May Jeremy Warner, 30 May Germany resisted the euro, arguing that full political union should come first. Germany was reluctant to give up the Deutsche Mark, a symbol of its economic power and commitment to price stability. Martin Feldstein, 27 May , with many links. Why it is impossible - The Name Is Bond. German central bank chief Jens Weidmann: Greek leftist Alexis Tsipras delivers 'message of friendship' to Germans Leader of Syriza insists Greece is not seeking to blackmail Germany during his charm offensive in Berlin Guardian 22 May New York Times om Ms.
By this point, there should be no debate: Austerity has been a failure New York Times, editorial, 24 May CDU parliaament group leader; "Sarrazin is wrong again. The euro is a success story and will remain so. Der Spiegel, 22 maj Thilo Sarrazin, the former board member of Germany's central bank who caused outrage two years ago with a bestseller criticizing the impact of Muslim immigrants on German society, presented a new book on Tuesday that could strike a similar chord with Germans: In his latest work, the combative politician, a maverick member of the opposition center-left Social Democratic Party, controversially argues that Germany is being pressured to bail out the euro zone because it perpetrated the Holocaust.
Sarrazin writes that supporters of euro bonds in Germany "are driven by that very German reflex, that we can only finally atone for the Holocaust and World War II when we have put all our interests and money into European hands," according to excerpts published in German media ahead of the book launch. Carsten Schneider, a budget policy spokesman for the SPD, said: His criticism of the euro is nationalist and reactionary. He concludes that Europe can only get out of its mess if it rapidly moves towards political union, which he opposes, or that the union should be transformed into a looser formation that allows troubled member states to quit so that they can regain competitiveness through currency devaluation.
Sarrazin, a former finance minister for the city-state of Berlin, quit his position at the Bundesbank in after reaching a settlement with the central bank, which had tried to fire him for damaging its reputation with his repeated provocative comments about immigrants. He has since embarked on a lucrative career as an author. Sarrazin sold over 1. Bloomberg 21 May The euro has lost 3.
Greece's best hopes now lie in a return to the drachma. Der Spiegel, Staff, 14 maj At the Chancellery in Berlin, the television images from Athens now remind Merkel's advisers of conditions in the ill-fated Weimar Republic of Peter Wolodarski, DN 13 maj Financial Times, 9 May A future German inflation rate above the eurozone average could be part of a natural adjustment process as crisis-hit countries pulled themselves out of recession, the Bundesbank argued in evidence to German parliamentarians submitted on Wednesday.
Euro Will Have to Be Devalued to Save EU Devaluing a currency enables debtor nations to meet their obligations more easily, but European nations cannot act unilaterally in monetary policy. One obvious solution to helping the troubled nations is a devaluation of the euro, something the ECB has resisted due primarily to pressure from Germany and nations that don't have the same debt issues.
Devaluing a currency enables debtor nations to meet their obligations more easily, but European nations cannot act unilaterally in monetary policy. The ECB, in an attempt to save the union, will lower the euro. Eurointelligence, 9 May Europaportalen 8 maj Full text med bild. May 7, Rolf Englund 7 maj That is the way the EU works. What the Franco-German axis demands, it gets.
But Hollande has pledged himself to tearing it up. MarketWatch 25 April Funding of banks that are not financially sound or against inadequate collateral would shift substantial risks between national taxpayers. Abiding by the rules of stability-oriented monetary policy, many of which are enshrined in the EU treaty, is not a legalistic obsession: Ignoring such constraints is not a pragmatic solution but would instead mean being carelessly oblivious to the corrosive effect such violations have on confidence in our single currency. Bloomberg Apr 23, He was outvoted on Aug. But what he really intends to do is accumulate even more debt.
True, debt spurs demand; but this type of demand is artificial and short-lived. What Italy managed in the past by devaluing the lira must now be emulated through so-called real depreciation. Why Draghi was wrong to cut interest rates Deflation in parts of a currency union is not the same as deflation of a union as a whole Hans-Werner Sinn, Financial Times, November 13, Interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeinen Sonntagszeitung.
Spain and Italy At some point the Greeks will say: First, the tourists will return. The, the Greeks will stop importing more agricultural products from France than they export. That will give a boost to the domestic economy. Third, the capital that was pulled out of the country will return. Under no circumstances whatsoever could the eurozone members span a protective umbrella over Europe's big countries, like it has for the small ones.
Altogether, Greece has received billion euros so far. That cannot be repeated proportionately for the big countries. We are fast approaching a tight spot where things are getting very difficult. Encouraged by subsidies for Kurzarbeit, or short-time working, companies instead hoarded labour.
As a result, domestic demand remained stable, allowing a quick rebound. What helped was that other countries inflated away from Germany. Financial Times, 19 April Ekot, 20 februari The most likely outcome German inflation will rise The dominant German view is that the crisis reflects fiscal indiscipline. Others insist rightly that the core problem was excessive lending, divergent competitiveness and external imbalances. Martin Wolf, Financial Times 17 April Suddeutsche Zeitung, a paper that is liberal politically but hardline orthodox on economics, blames speculators.
It would then be up to Germany to decide whether to leave, perhaps with Austria, the Netherlands and Finland. Martin Wolf, Financial Times 13 September 13, EU Fiscal Pact May Breach German Constitution Germany's opposition Left Party says the fiscal pact agreed by 25 of the EU's 27 members may breach the constitution because -- the party argues -- it can never be rescinded rescind: This hegemony is as deeply troubling to the Germans themselves as it is to the rest of Europe.
They too have been swept along by an EMU process that they do not fully understand, and that has left them with a string of awful choices. It is not our reflex to stick out and lead policy. We have done extremely well by not being in the forefront. Yet, for all the rhetoric, little has changed. He has embraced to the Puritan doctrine of "expansionary fiscal contraction" taught in German universities - but almost nowhere else in the world - which in its extreme form posits that a return to fiscal probity brings its own reward, even without the cushion of devaluation and monetary stimulus.
Germany went through its own austerity in the early part of the last decade while others were living high on the hog, and the memory understandably rankles. But as ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schroder says to deaf ears, he had to break the EU stability pact with deficits above 3pc of GDP at that time in order to cushion the pain of deep labour reform.
Fiscal slippage was politically necessary, even in Germany. Full text of excellent article. All decisions with financial implications will have to be approved by the German parliament as a whole. Eurointelligence 28 March I find it hard to see how the German parliament would simply accept a near-doubling of the risk, after having been told time and again that this would not be necessary. And even this would not satisfy the rest of the world, since this is only a temporary increase. Some economists warn that the German central bank faces hidden liabilities of billion euros in the form of unsettled claims within the European payments settlement system, and could lose that sum if the euro zone breaks apart.
Der Spiegel 26 March SvD-ledare Claes Arvidsson 24 mars There are growing divisions among ECB leadership about how to handle the euro crisis, not to mention between the ECB and the Bundesbank, Germany's central bank. Der Spiegel, 6 March This ancient town in the center of Alsace boasts the extraordinary Humanist Library, dating from the 15th century. New York Times, 3 March Rolf Gustavssonm, SvD 3 mars What keeps the United States' monetary union strong is not our common language nor the uniformity of economic conditions across member states, but rather our meaningful fiscal union transfers across states as part of the federal U.
Ted Temzelides, professor of economics at Rice University, February 17, My oath forbids that. The euro has been a major experiment. A current total of 17 countries with many things in common -- but also many differences, such as their economies, politics, histories and ways of life -- have embraced a common currency.
Contrary to the expectations of many including myself , these differences have not grown smaller over the years. Unfortunately, there is no reason to expect that such increased harmonization might occur in the foreseeable future. Wolfgang Kaden, Der Spiegel 2 March It's been over 20 years since then-German Chancellor and former history scholar Helmut Kohl stood before the Bundestag, Germany's parliament, and uttered the remarkable line: Indeed, there won't be a United States of Europe comparable to that across Atlantic any time soon -- if ever.
Robert Barro i Wall Street Journal. Artikelns rubrik var "All Systems Reverse! Kohl declared to a special session of Parliament Germany must decide what the European Union is for Chancellor Helmut Kohl asserted to a special session of Parliament that accords signed by European leaders in Maastricht would ultimately lead the Continent to political union Clive Crook, Bloomberg 16 February That means that we have achieved a key goal of German policy toward Europe.
Kohl declared to a special session of Parliament. Maybe, just maybe, the claim that Europeans were bound so closely together that the nation-state was history helped financial markets to believe the EU would not let countries of the euro zone default on their debts. As long as this was believed - whatever the clauses in the debt contracts might say - Greece and others could borrow very cheaply, and they did. Eurokrisen, fisksoppan och elitens olidliga dumhet Rolf Englund blog 28 november So Merkel insists on sticking to the current strategy.
Full text and video. Voluntary Why might Germany prefer a defaulted Greece to a rescued Greece? The trouble with the PSI is that it may set off a wave of similar demands from deeply indebted countries. A more polite form of German-bashing by Lagarde, Geithner and Cameron I if the eurozone is to survive — and the world economy is to avoid disaster — Germany has to do much more, and pay much more, to keep the single currency afloat They make demands for financial commitments that would risk economic and political disaster back in Germany.
Germany was in the forefront of the countries pushing for the creation of the euro. And yet it is increasingly apparent that creating a single currency, without a single nation behind it, is at the root of the current crisis. Twice in the past year I have found myself sitting next to different senior German officials at a dinner who have proceeded to tell me that the whole single currency was a terrible mistake.
The long shadow of the s Could things go bad again? I mean really bad — Great Depression bad, world war bad?
WORK|OUT Edition 29 (German)
The kind of cataclysmic event my generation has learned to think belongs only in the history books. Gideon Rachman, Financial Times, November 28, The extraordinary decision by Angela Merkel to campaign for Sarkozy in the April-May presidential elections where he is trailing in the polls against the Socialist candidate Francois Hollande has been criticized in much of the German press David Marsh, MarketWatch 13 February Born Angela Kasner, she is the oldest daughter of a rural Protestant pastor for whom education was more important than piousness.
She was still a university student when she married Ulrich Merkel. The marriage did not last long, but she kept the name. She was a "studied" GDR citizen: Deutsdhe Welle 8 March In school, young Angela was watched closely by her teachers, as were all children who came from religious families.
Being careful in dealing with others would certainly have been one of the lessons she learned early on. She excelled in mathematics and Russian and completed her degree in physics in Leipzig as one of the best in her class. There were repeated encounters with the East German monitoring and surveillance system. At her first job interview, her future employer already knew that Merkel had bought new blue jeans and that she listened to Western radio broadcasts. As much as she can get worked up about these and other Stasi experiences, it never really hurt her.
She has proven that she can lead — but many in her party are still asking in which direction she plans to take the CDU. Moldova On a blazing afternoon, as the euro crisis was surging back from summer vacation, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany descended on this impoverished sliver of a nation in her continuing quest to expand the European family. Folk costumes, children proffering roses and an honor guard figured in a welcome that evoked faded Communist pomp and still more distant Hapsburg glory.
Evelyn Roll, a journalist who early on spotted Ms. Such were the sentiments that German President Joachim Gauck acknowledged right at the beginning of his highly anticipated keynote address on Europe.
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It was the first major speech of his month-old presidency, and it comes at a time when euro-skepticism is widespread - most notably in Britain, but also in Germany and across the EU. Gauck, though, quickly moved on from the laundry list of complaints that are often directed at Brussels and from the fears felt by those countries in crisis. In the rest of the speech, he delivered an eloquent and passionate defense of the European idea. In a very positive way, more Europe has become part of our everyday lives.
Gauck, who, like Chancellor Angela Merkel, spent his formative years in the former East Germany, was quick to call for "more Europe" when he was first sworn in last March, following the ignominious resignation of his predecessor, Christian Wulff. But Friday marked the first time he provided greater insight into his vision of Europe. First and foremost, he said, Europe needed to develop a common identity. More Europe means making diversity more genuinely part of our lives and allowing it to unite us.
Europa och Folken En Europeisk nation eller nationernas Europa? Some secrets surrounding this enigmatic man have died with him, but quite a few things are a matter of public record. Born in , he served on the Russian front during World Ward II and, at the age of 19 in , was taken prisoner. How long he remained in Russian hands — and when he got back to Germany — is not recorded. But somewhere along the way, he became a clergyman, and married a Polish woman, Herlind Jentzsch, in She gave birth to Angela in , and then three weeks later Kasner did what almost no other German had ever done: By choice, he became an Osti.
German unemployment has fallen to a post-Reunification low of 5. Fiscal discipline is not the cure. Martin Wolf Financial Times 31 January, Some had hoped that Berlin, particularly with its economic strength, would be more open to greater financing of the necessary adjustment process in the eurozone or to that role being played by the European Central Bank. Instead of pulling countries together, it will drive them to mutual recrimination. Add to Watch list. Email to friends Share on Facebook - opens in a new window or tab Share on Twitter - opens in a new window or tab Share on Pinterest - opens in a new window or tab.
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