Euro Crisis—Before the Collapse

In its latest piece on the tensions being created within Europe by Germany’s tough stand in the face of the imminent collapse of certain European Union economies, German-Foreign-Policy.com muses that “[w]hile Berlin continues to block any crisis measures—i.e. the buying up of state borrowings by the ecb or the extension of the ‘rescue umbrella’ esm—in order to help the crisis, protests, especially in Italy, are growing against the German politic” (August 9; translation ours throughout).

German-Foreign-Policy.com cites the Italian press saying that “Germany is on the rise, ‘not with cannons but with the euro’ … declaring that Rome now must submit to the rule of ‘the new kaiser named Angela Merkel’ and Berlin’s dictate.”

The release continues,

In the meantime even formerly faithful allies of Germany are backing off from the political blockade by the federal government.The Austrian Federal Chancellor Werner Faymann declares that one must finally give the “rescue umbrella” of the esm a banking license, making it possible to “leverage” demands on it.Meanwhile, German politicians are continuing their contrary course without lowering their sights. For instance, the Bavarian Finance Minister Markus Söder (csu) demands that Germany should receive a stronger influence in the ecb. This would allow Berlin to cement its restrictive currency politics even more tightly, for the crisis states a fatal course of action.

And that is just the outcome that German elites want!