ACCORDING TO DER SPIEGEL, Angela Merkle is becoming isolated within the euro zone over her insistence that Germany’s pockets are not bottomless . But her partners insist that she is wrong and asks her to pour billions more of her country’s hard earned euros into saving both the euro currency and the world financial order; and if it all goes belly up, they are set to blame Chancellor Merkle…solidarity, it seems, is in short supply.
But Merkle is right to resist such pleading from her various partners within the euro zone. Germany is the one country in all of Europe that has the right architecture in place for a successful economy. A strong work ethic among its people; a pride in its workforce for the product they are making and selling; a reputation for quality, and yes, that old cliché efficiency. It also has the finest apprenticeships in Europe ...where, in the UK, it seems, every youngster court’s celebrity, the German youth have their feet on the ground.
It is as if Germany is being penalised for its success. The unelected Italian prime minister, Mario Monti, a technocrat who was elevated by the Merkozy after Berlusconi was forced to depart the stage, is saying that Germany needs to do more to save the situation. Which of course means handing over more cash to help keep this wretched currency afloat.
The European economies were out of kilter at the time of the euros’ birth. Rather than sound judgement, the project went ahead regardless. Driven by European idealism, Europe’s leaders, or those in its strongest economies, kept their fingers crossed. For faith rather than sound judgement, which they had but never used , was what launched the whole enterprise.
Britain, an empirical nation by nature, did stop and study the likely success of a single currency under such a misalignment of economies, and found that there could not have been a less salubrious set of circumstance for its success, than were present at its launch. Of course our partners in Europe put our genuine concern down to our euro-scepticism. But they would be wrong; even many Europhiles had their doubts, but their solidarity with the cause of European Federalism kept them silent. Or this is what they will eventually say when the iceberg eventually penetrates the hull.
GERMANY, WITH ITS history, wanted to prove themselves exemplary Europeans. No other nation has done more to redeem itself for its historical behaviour than the modern German people. When it came to Europe, Germany felt they needed to cement themselves in solidarity with the rest of Europe; and sound judgement took second place when it came to a single currency. It was as if they felt they could not trust themselves as a nation any more.
I admire modern Germany, not only for the qualities mentioned above, but because they seem to have the same spirit that gave birth to the Industrial Revolution in the UK from the middle of the 18th century; but which has long since departed these shores.
We in the UK, no longer speak of a manufacturing base, but a financial sector. Germany held true to its manufacturing base and made it so successful that it is in demand throughout the world. If only sound judgement had been the sole consideration, when a single currency was presented to Germany, then today the Chancellor of Germany would not be hounded by lesser economies into saving them.
While I do not live in Germany, the reports I collect from 24 hour news and the internet including Der Spiegel, I believe the German people are increasingly resentful of how their taxes have been frittered away. Which, no doubt, is why Angela Merkle, who is soon to face re-election has proven so obstinate.
A CONFIDENT GERMANY would have delayed a single currency until all the economies of the member states had economic parity with each other. If this could not have proved possible (which I believe it could not), then a two tier system should have been enforced; had pragmatism ruled, instead of idealism.
But even before all of this, political union should have heralded economic unification. In the spirit of idealism regarding the formation of a United States of Europe, this other premise for the single currencies success was ignored. Political union creates the architecture for economic union, and once more the idealistic impulses of the federalists who chose to side step a vital issue in order to make European Federalism a workable institution, failed because of their romanticism.
But, as we know, politics is the democratic meat of the people; and what the federalist sought was the ending of all national sovereignty. This proved such an obstacle to Europe’s politicians in Brussels, that they thought they could do it in reverse with a single currency put before a political union. We now see where this has lead.
Angela Merkle must stand her ground and demand the same entrepreneurial spirit from the so-called pigs nations, that her nation embraces.
IN ITALY AND GREECE, taxes have been optional since they joined the European union. There has been no effective tax base in either countries. Instead, any shortfall in public expenditure, was borrowed, with Europe’s stronger countries, via the euro of course, acting as collateral.
It is obscenely unfair for those countries that have acted so irresponsibly as far as the running of their own economies is concerned, to now almost demand from Germany that they effectively bail them out once more. No wonder the German public are becoming more cynical by the day; and I hope they continue to press their chancellor to remain stubborn and bloody-minded…but, alas, as with the UK’s political leaders, Germanys will no doubt prove themselves equally manipulative when it comes to ignoring the popular will.
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