March 10, 2010

Is a bailout the right pillar for a political union?

Sir Martin Wolf is quite clear on that much of Germany´s strength is based on other´s weaknesses and so he reaches the conclusion that in order to be able to manage difficulties such as the one Greece is having within the EU, “Germany must become less German”, “The eurozone crisis is now a nightmare for Germany”, March 10.

This is the classic dilemma, shall we put those students who study hard in the same group as those who do not in the hope that the average becomes better... or might we risk spoiling all by doing just that?

In normal circumstances I would probably agree with Wolf but given there are new recently discovered limits to sustainable growth, like climate change and lack of oil, I am not sure having Germans consume like American points in the right direction.

And then there is also the fact that the Germans do what they do because they´re Germans while the Chinese do what they do because their governments orders what they are to do, and so before China gives in I truly dislike asking the German to do so.

Is a bailout a good pillar for a political union? If the answer is no then perhaps we need to analyze more in detail the real implications of a eurozone breakdown before making our minds up. Whatever, at the end of the day, I would still prefer a German eurozone crisis´ nightmare than the Greek or Spanish version of it.