Economics

Merkel en China

Aug 27, 2012 Sanjaya Baru

NUEVA DELHI – La segunda visita de la canciller alemana Ángela Merkel a China en el periodo de un año llega con un trasfondo de nefastas predicciones de una septiembre difícil para la eurozona. Teniendo en cuenta estas preocupaciones y el pesimismo persistente en los mercados financieros internacionales, Merkel está tomando audaces iniciativas políticas en su país y en el extranjero. De hecho, su viaje a China debe ser visto como un esfuerzo por reafirmar el liderazgo alemán a lo largo y ancho de la eurozona.

En casa, Merkel recientemente envió un mensaje claro a sus críticos, indicando que Alemania debe pagar un precio por el liderazgo de la eurozona. Advirtió a sus colegas acerca de que no deben realizar comentarios a la ligera sobre una “Grexit” – una salida de Grecia de la eurozona – y aseguró al primer ministro griego, Antonis Samaras, quien se encontraba de visita, que Alemania conserva su compromiso de mantener a su país como miembro de la eurozona.

Si bien se necesitó valor para tomar una postura tan firme, hacerlo ayudó a fortificar la posición de Merkel en Alemania y a lo largo y ancho de la eurozona. Ahora no queda duda de que ella está dispuesta a comprometer a Alemania a la causa de la conservación de la Unión Europea y de la eurozona, y que trabajará para lograr ese objetivo. Si tiene éxito, va a surgir como la primera gran líder europea del siglo XXI.

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 3 Comments on this article

John Brian Shannon Sep 4, 2012

The Eurozone countries are beginning to see there is no real future for them without Germany, German leadership, direct and full access to Germany's marketplace and German good-will.

Global trade is accelerating and at the end of this recession, international trade will again grow exponentially. Linkage with a strong, well-connected partner will be of utmost importance going forward.

Until then, economic survival is paramount. Only Germany can do this for the Eurozone members -- no other nation on the continent has the means to do so, nor are any European non-Eurozone nations volunteering for such a thankless task.

The sooner everyone wraps their heads around all of this, the better it will all work out for all involved.
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Jakub Słowiński Aug 28, 2012

China-Germany relationship would hardly shape the EU-China ties. Every major country in Europe has more or less its own agenda towards China: Britain won't do anything that could wreak havoc over US agenda towards PRC, what is more, London is showing signs of being possible rival to Beijing in Myanmar and Myanmar, along with Pakistan and Kazakhstan, is one of the three most important possible transit countries for China in order to get rid of Malacca Strait dependence, France is somewhat out of strategy, but its stance on Syria, which is getting more aggresive every day, won't do anything good in accordance to its ties with China. Spain and Italy have too much problems to have a strategy, recently Poland along with other CE countries is trying to catch up with China, following the example of Orban, but with more reality-based thinking in whole process. And what is more important, China prefer its current way of bilateral handling of European countries, EU as a whole is more pretentious and less effective in order to get along. If someone believes that EU, following German example will establish some considerable strategy on China, let him take a look at how this process goes with Russia...
The task of having good relations with China is easy for Germany, because it is to some extent in the outer space of institutionalized system of the world, established after WWII and since then not very much modified. It is the trading power and because China is the trading power too, ties between them are deemed to strenghten. Germany is exceptional in Europe, especially different to UK and France. Let's be frank, Germans couldn't even promote effectively the Polish initiative of Eastern Partnership so how will they unite Europe towards would-be-in-few-minutes the biggest economic powerhouse in the world?
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Alexandros Liakopoulos Aug 28, 2012

The problem with Angela is she proved herself toο... German to become a Leader of the EU. "Germanizing" Europe can never be tolerated from European people wgo value their national identity and state's independence. The current european "hostility" against the European Institutions and theit imposed "rescue-the-banks" operations across Europe, along with the German preoccupation on austerity which maybe destroys European economies as parts of a whole, but in the same time it creates the necessary environment for Germany (and/or Bundesbank) to become the "Primus inter pares"...
Mrs Merkel faces the realitites of political economy, as it is created under an ongoing competition on the European continent between the World Banksters Gang, as it is taking concrete form on Mario Draghi's presence on the ECB leadership, and the German National State, the "Europe' s steam engine". A Germanized Europe is her counter-proposal to the banksters' proposal for a Banking Unification. Saying it in a few concrete words, Angela misses the chance to become a European leader, as it opted for a policy that threats all other European nations with the creation of the very monster the EU was first conceived for: to avoid the war as an answer to German preoccupation for the creation of a new Reich. Therefore, even if such trips of Angela aim to present her as the Collective Representative of Europe - which she is NOT - she has already sapped the very political ground on which she could be recognised as such between her European colleagues, in order to be afterwards recognised as such by other world leaders: the European Solidarity which drives the whole unification process for some 6 decades.

Therefore, she might manage or not to become a new European Furer, but she will never manage to get recognised as a European political figure of collective authority, based on values and ideas that would allow her to enjoy the pressuposed political support back home, before travelling abroad. Recognizing this very fact is the very problem Europe faces today: people and institutions who with their actions and/or failures, wrong ideas and catastrophic policies have moved the continent from some decades of prosperity to a future of pain, claim they are the representatives of Europe. However, Europeans tend to speak last on all subjects, far after their leaders do, speak or act according to their own and not the people's agenda. But when that happens, History teaches the results: if we fail once more to fight back against Banksters' crimes and their new ineterests, along with Germany' s expressed strategy for the creation of a German Europe, no matter what the global initiatives Angela will try to develop, we will all face the historic punishment as brutally as we got it in the last century... History keeps repeating itself while we keep ingoring its teachings: so, who is to blame for the punishments to come, while we all knew the History is a very hard teacher before taking its class? This is the question...
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