Everyone's Talking About 1

The Survival of the Euro

Much of the speculation swamping the opinion pages on the future of the euro seems to hinge on the premise that the German electorate are unwilling to sanction many more loans to Greece and other ailing Mediterranean economies. German public opinion, we're told, simply won't stand for it. The consensus is that it would be electoral suicide for Merkel to countenance yet another bailout. Too much of this is being written from a very British standpoint, where the idea of bailing out the profligate south is anathema. But we would do well to remember that many Germans - as with much of mainland Europe - are committed ideologically not only to the euro but to the very idea of European union in a far more deeply-rooted way than we understand. Are we not allowing our phobia of the currency (not to mention of the wider 'european project') and our schadenfreude at the prospect of its seemingly imminent demise, to underestimate the lengths to the which the tolerance of the German electorate can be stretched? The German red-tops are apparently in revolt, but there we go again, projecting our own ideas about the all-powerful tabloid press onto a country where the Bild-Zeitung might not wield the political clout that we (until last week) associated with our own tabloids. We are guilty of a cultural bias here, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Germans and others find the political will to keep bailing out for a good deal longer.

John Lancaster's article in the latest LRB is interesting on the mindset of those Greeks who stand to bear the brunt of the austerity measures. My first instinct when watching the rioters reek havoc in Athens - so intent on destruction, faces masked - was that they should brace-up and get their house in order. But if the overwhelming majority of the British public like to blame bankers and politicians (in that order) for their own near-catastrophic financial meltdown and subsequent misery, why shouldn't the Greeks feel the same way? Yes, they retire too early and avoid too much tax, but these are deeply ingrained cultural traits that all eurozone member states have been aware of for years. John Lancaster says: In the world of money, people are privately outraged by the general unwillingness of electorates to accept the blame for the state they are in. But the general public, it turns out, had very little understanding of the economic mechanisms which were, without their knowing it, ruling their lives. He makes a good point.