Angela "Frau Fritz" Merkel and the EU summit

Klaus Stuttmann in a 28.06.2012 cartoon shows German Chancellor Angela Merkel as "Old Fritz", aka, Frederick the Great.

"Enlightened Prussian Absolutism"

Angie is saying, "Thrift, incorruptibility, efficiency and disciple: THAT's what Europe has to learn!!

This is the original Old Fritz:


Charles Hawley takes a stab at guessing Angie's intent in taking such a public hard line going into the current EU summit Euro Crisis Summit: What Merkel Really Wants from Europe Spiegel International 06/28/2012:

Still, something has changed in the Chancellery. Merkel's message has become shriller and more urgent as demands from Southern Europe for shared debt have become louder. The reason is not difficult to divine: From Merkel's perspective, the narrative of impending disaster threatens to hijack the debate.

Yes, Angie, impending disaster has a way make people want to stop doing self-destructive things.

Well, some people, anyway, probably not you, Frau Fritz.

Merkel's conviction that only fundamental reform efforts -- concrete steps toward the political union which the original architects of the common currency failed to put in place -- can save the euro in the long run informed her Wednesday assault against the plan presented earlier this week by the so-called Gang of Four. European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, Euro Group President Jean-Claude Juncker and European Central Bank President Mario Draghi worked out a possible plan to pull the euro back from the brink.

But Merkel on Wednesday excoriated their proposal. "I profoundly disagree with the stance taken in the report that precedence is given to mutualization, and that more control and enforceable commitments take second place and are phrased in very imprecise terms," said Merkel. "There is a clear discrepancy between liability and control in this report, so I fear that the summit will once again talk too much about all kinds of ideas for possible joint liability, and much too little about improved controls and structural measures."

Her speech ended with a very un-Merkel-like broadside: "Our work must convince those who have lost confidence in the euro zone, not by self-deception and sham solutions but by fighting the causes of the crisis."

For Angie, phrases like "fighting the causes of the crisis" mean austerity, more austerity and even more austerity.

Angela Merkel's policy toward her European "partners"

And Hawley cluelessly thinks that's fine and dandy:

With the flaws of the euro zone now exposed for all to see, Merkel appears to be on the verge of achieving a giant step toward her European dream. The euro-zone's debt-stricken nations have almost all pushed through far-reaching political and labor market reforms. Just on Wednesday, Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti managed to pass the final legislative piece of a package of measures aimed at liberalizing Italy's labor market and creating jobs. He has also installed significant austerity measures and raised taxes, paths that Portugal, Greece and Ireland have all undertaken. Spain is in the process of examining badly needed reforms of its financial system. Of course, many argue that the economies of many of those countries are also suffering as a result of the strict austerity measures Merkel has promoted.

Still, it would appear that history is suddenly on Merkel's side.

Yes, if History wants to deep-six the euro and plow under the European Union, Frau Fritz is a regular Hegelian world-historical leader, even one motivated by "idealism", as the admiring Hawley puts it.

Otherwise, she's just the Angienator.

Tags: angela merkel, austerity economics, eu, euro, european union

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