Merkel’s Moment — The American Magazine
As Europe’s sovereign debt crisis now envelopes Italy, Spain, and even France, one has to pity Angela Merkel, the doughty German chancellor. She now finds herself helplessly caught between two irreconcilable forces. The markets, together with the French, Italian, and Spanish governments, are clamoring that she should lean heavily on the European Central Bank (ECB) to provide unlimited financial support to reduce Italian and Spanish interest rates to affordable levels. Yet, closer to home, her electorate is balking at any notion of putting additional German taxpayer money at risk for yet further bailouts for the crisis countries. Her electorate is also against taking financial pressure off the peripheral countries to mend their wayward ways.
