I thought that Angela Merkel had a lot more common sense then to help bail out European social welfare basket case Greece. That would be something that I would expect her predecessor Gerhard Schroder would do. The whole European Union experiment was a Franco-German-Belgian plot to take over Europe through political entrapment. The idea that nations of different languages, cultures, and histories would bond together into one super state is against the laws of history. I for one would not be saddened to see the EU (a bunch of trouble makers in my opinion) fall on its face. The last two Europeans (from France and Germany – what a coincidence!) who tried to unite Europe by force were Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler (and both of their dreams ended in the snows of Russia).
by Peter Millar
GISELA and Susi, thirtysomething civil service secretaries, were shivering over their sausages in what the tabloids labelled the “most miserable May of the millennium” and planning their summer holidays. “I know where I’m not going,” one of them said. “The hotels, service and food aren’t as good as Turkey but the prices are as high as Italy!”
As Berliners bravely sat on the banks of the River Spree in unseasonably cold weather for the Ascension Day holiday that traditionally marks the start of summer, they had no doubt that the cold wind was blowing from the sunny south: Greece in particular.
The multi-billion-euro payout for Greece, followed by an even more expensive rescue package for the threatened single currency, has created the greatest political climate change in a generation.
Suddenly Germans are asking questions about the European project that has been the bedrock of their politics for 60 years, leaving Angela Merkel, the chancellor, under fire from the electorate, the opposition and her own party.
[…]
The tension between Germany and France threatened to spill over at a Brussels summit last weekend when Merkel and Sarkozy had a furious row. According to observers, it ended with Sarkozy threatening to leave the euro.
“It was a stand-up argument,” an official told El Pais, the Spanish newspaper. Sarkozy, furious at Merkel’s reluctance to sign up to a safety net of €750 billion (£644 billion), was shouting and bawling at Merkel and smashed his fist on the table. “It was Sarkozy on steroids,” one witness said.
Dubbed “our Iron Lady” — or just “Mutti” (Mummy) within the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) that she dominates — Merkel returned to Germany accused of having given too much, too late.
Her timing was also poor. The euro talks, combined with the Greek bailout, led to a CDU defeat in North Rhine-Westphalia’s state election last weekend and with it the loss of her majority in the upper house.
Read the rest: ‘Mummy’ Merkel battered as Germans lose face in the EU
George Will finally has an interesting column and on the same subject
by George F. Will
When Chancellor Angela Merkel decided that Germany would pay part of Greece’s bills, voters punished her party in elections in Germany’s most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia. How appropriate.
The 1648 Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War, ratified Europe’s emerging system of nation-states. Since the end of the Thirty-One Years’ War (1914-1945), European elites have worked at neutering Europe’s nationalities. Greece’s debt crisis reveals this project’s intractable contradictions, and the fragility of Western Europe’s postwar social model — omniprovident welfare states lacking limiting principles.
Greece represents a perverse aspiration — a society with (in the words of Wisconsin Republican Rep. Paul Ryan) “more takers than makers,” more people taking benefits from government than there are people making goods and services that produce the social surplus that funds government. By socializing the consequences of Greece’s misgovernment, Europe has become the world’s leading producer of a toxic product — moral hazard. The dishonesty and indiscipline of a nation with 2.6% of the eurozone’s economic product have moved nations with the other 97.4% — and the United States and the International Monetary Fund — to say, essentially: The consequences of such vices cannot be quarantined, so we are all hostages to one another and hence no nation will be allowed to sink beneath the weight of its recklessness.
Recklessness will proliferate.
“The coining of money,” said William Blackstone more than two centuries ago, “is in all states the act of the sovereign power.”
Read the rest here: Folly of the ‘Euro’ state
Tags: george will, Peter Millar
