Austerity is the fault of blindness Brussels?, And European Commission President should? Have appointed commissioner for Greece
The gossips get angry, you know - if the truths. After the austerity sacrosanct punishing countries like Portugal is not the fault of Merkel or Schaeuble, the bad guys for more than half of Europe. No. Blame Brussels, and European Commission President Barroso of the incompetent. For the second time in less than a month, the varnish came popping between Germany and Brussels, this time in the sense totally contrary to the position of Berlin when the President of the European Commission said it had enough austerity. Wednesday, an informal meeting with reporters in Berlin, Wolfgang Schäuble, German finance minister, said the troika adjustment programs are too rigid and inflexible, Barroso criticized for not having named a commissioner for Greece. Already Angela Merkel, who also attended the meeting, argued that the package of 6 billion euros to promote youth employment in the EU should instead be used to pay for reforms, in order to be created vacancies in existing jobs.
The statements of the two German leaders emerged on the same day it was made public that the gross domestic product (GDP) in the euro area contracted 0.2% in the first three months of 2013, which represents the sixth consecutive quarterly decline, in what is the largest and longest recession since the euro's creation. Nine of these 17 economies while GDP fell in all 27 member states contracted 0.1%.
Volte-face The new data give renewed support to all those who have long advocated that more austerity will only create more recession, a spiral with no end in sight. Germany itself, the largest euro zone economy grew 0.1% in the previous quarter, but down 0.3% over the same period last year. Meanwhile, France's second-largest economy in the set of countries using the single currency also fell 0.4% versus the same period of 2012, while it recorded a further contraction of 0.2% over the last quarter past.
It was surely this framework that ultimately led Berlin to join his voice against austerity to other countries such as Greece, Spain and Portugal, disassociating itself from the European Commission, although so far Mrs Merkel have been systematically identified as the major incentive programs imposed by the troika (Commission, ECB and IMF) to all member states that required bailouts not to go into default (Portugal, Greece, Ireland and Cyprus). In this volte-face is not unconnected with the fact that the German Chancellor, who still maintains a high level of popularity, having a third reelection ahead, by now assumed that the position can be inserted at the next electoral battle, after several consecutive losses of the CDU in regional elections.
Durão criticized in April, the spokesman of the CDU "invited" Barroso to clarify what I meant when he said at a press conference that the limits to austerity were visible in some respects. "Although this policy to be fundamentally correct, I think it reached its limits in many aspects because a policy, to be successful, can not only be well-structured. You must have a minimum of political and social support, "he said at the time President of the European Commission.
Wednesday, and another meeting with journalists, Barroso, accompanied by the President of France, François Hollande, had a more politically correct speech, choosing to emphasize their statements in the victory of the European Union, for, on the whole, have finally reached the magical value of 3% deficit. A fact that neither Merkel nor appreciated Schäuble in Berlin.
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