Will the powerful German economy break up the EU?
A press review featuring Fabio De Masi.
- Sebastian Bolesch
26th of February 2018, Ozy, Jeffrey Moore II: Will the powerful German economy break up the EU?
"Nearly 70 years ago, six countries — Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands — started a grand experiment to secure a lasting peace following two world wars that had erupted in the heart of Europe. The European Coal and Steel Community was established in 1950 as a first step in integrating the continent economically and politically into what would eventually become the European Union.
Thirty years later, the genesis of the single market came as a growing union began sorting out the free flow of goods across national borders. Then, in 1985, the Schengen Agreement all but abolished internal border checks. (...)
Because Germany’s dominant economic position gives it leverage to dictate wider EU policies, from immigration to austerity, bitter indignation from the Balkans to France portends an uncertain future for the EU. It is a reality acknowledged even by German politicians like Fabio De Masi, (...)
“Germany is the fourth-largest economy in the world and has an enormous political and economic power in the European Union, not least because Germany is selling more and more abroad than it buys, which means a high export surplus,” De Masi told the website Debating Europe. It also means its trading partners go into debt, he explained, leaving Germany “the only country to have the fiscal ammunition for the so-called euro rescue packages, which were, in reality, bank rescues. Thus, Germany can largely dictate policy in the eurozone.”"