Euro

Tuesday May 8, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Tuesday May 8, 2012

Merkel readies for fight

Angela Merkel is under pressure to defeat the popular backlash against austerity to save her political skin and preserve Germany’s dominance in the eurozone.

Over the next four weeks, the German chancellor will face the fight of her political life on all fronts, domestic and European, at a moment when one slip could sink her government and tear down the European Union’s single currency.

Merkel must take the lead in trying to find an answer for the crisis in Greece, after three-fifths of Greek voters rejected EU austerity measures. Ger-man taxpayers have put $275 billion on the line to bail out countries such as Greece, and Germany’s patience is running out with countries that reject the prescribed economic medicine of debt reduction while continuing to demand the handouts.

To appease her highly taxed voters, who are worried that EU bailouts have breached Germany’s constitution, Merkel has made German economic aid conditional on all eurozone countries signing the “fiskalpakt”.

The treaty, signed by 25 EU countries, gives Brussels officials the right to block bud-gets that break spending rules which are enshrined in national constitutions, as is the case in Germany.

The measures, the chancellor assured German voters, would prevent eurozone countries going bust and leaving Ger-many holding bailout bills.

Merkel on Monday insisted Greece had to stick to the austerity program so resoundingly rejected by voters and that the reforms to the Greek economy were of “utmost importance”(Source: Vancouver Sun)

 

Friday November 4, 2011

Friday November 4, 2011By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday November 4, 2011

Greek Debt Crisis at a Critical Point

In the European currency war, Germany has the biggest arsenal and the strongest interest in forestalling the collapse of the euro. So why is it playing Hamlet: “To lead or not to lead?”

September 2011

To ponder and waver is not the old German way. Today, Germany is about as aggressive as a pussy cat, but pundits and politicos from the U.S. to Greece have blamed its dithering for rising market volatility and the mounting costs of the debt crisis. The 50% haircut on Greek bonds decreed at last week’s EU summit should have been imposed a year ago. Athens was insolvent even then. So it is always too little, too late. Whenever the Berlin-backed European Union rescue brigades and the European Central Bank close one breach, the markets attack on another flank. They will do so again, and the euro will remain in peril. Greece simply cannot grow enough to service its debt.

As the euro burns, Mrs. Merkel fiddles mixed messages. In Berlin the chancellor preaches generosity, dispatching German taxpayers’ funds to Athens. But in Brussels she stalls, demanding ever-more austerity and market reforms before relenting at the last minute. The euro rises, then drops again.

Mrs. Merkel’s latest volley—that any Greek referendum on the terms of a rescue package by the EU and the International Monetary Fund would decide whether Greece keeps the euro at all—sent markets roiling this week.

Ontario’s Greek Crisis

Yet the unraveling of Euroland would hit Germany the hardest. The neue deutschemark would shoot up, while the nouveau franc and the nuova lira would nosedive. And so would Germany’s exports, now an astounding 47% of its gross domestic product, two-thirds of which stay within the EU.

So why isn’t Mrs. Merkel rushing forward to grab Europe’s crown? The answer, of course, is history. (Source: Wall Street Journal)