Germany and Greece puzzle

The atmosphere in recent weeks to 1, Willy-Brandt-Straße in Berlin is very tense. The headquarters of the German Chancellor, one of the largest buildings in the executive branch in the world - eight times the size of the White House - is full of thousands of civil servants busy on serious topics of the hour, the unemployment rate galloping economic recovery through the fight against tax evasion.

However, the issue of greatest concern to Angela Merkel, German Chancellor and his close advisors is on the financial chaos in Greece and its implications for the euro zone.

Given its solid economic fundamentals, excellent side among rating agencies, and discipline in the management of public funds worthy of the precepts of the greatest strategists of the Wehrmacht, Germany was able to better withstand the crisis of other EU countries.

Berlin is not only the leading power of Europe in many respects, it remains essentially the economic engine. This position poses a dilemma because its dependence on other countries of the Union (for exports) and the absence of barriers (Schengen Agreement) force her to help them.

Clearly, Germany has to "breathe" Marshall Plan for the soft bellies of the economic chain of the federation if it does not itself suffer eventually.

Angela Merkel and Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble have long been reluctant to deeper involvement in Berlin to help the economies of the Union with disabilities. They believe strongly that some of their neighbors are using Europe as a scapegoat for their internal problems.

This mistrust explains their choice not to use the European Central Bank and the Bundesbank as major donors, preferring the IMF and other transnational channels in order to spread risk over a larger platform of financial players and countries .

It must be said that Greece has not been recently a model of economic management in the eyes of German observers and financial markets. Far from being a dwarf geostrategic like Iceland, Greece a strong economy (mainly based on tourism and maritime sectors) ranked 26th on the list of the IMF (GDP / country in 2009).

But the fact that the country is surreal, led now by the Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou Greek-American, was convicted of falsification of accounts statistics on its entry into the European federation.

The executive must take Hellene to grips with the deficit and public debt service, and fiscal austerity programs are sure to increase the social movements in the coming months.

Other countries of the old continent have a similar prognosis, and are grouped under the acronym instead of génuflecteur PIGS (Pigs). These countries are Portugal, Italy, (Greece), and Spain, they also have economies undermined by the collapse of the housing market, climbing unemployment, the industrial base crumbled and massive relocation of firms private.

European authorities will react for sure to prevent a snowball effect potentially harmful to the rest of Europe. Many options available to them, direct support of the ECB to Greece for a partial redemption of the Greek debt by the ECB through grants from transnational structures such as the IMF and an increase in protectionist measures to stop the bleeding pending economic (eg, war with China shoes).