Germany blocks the ECB

Jean-Claude Trichet, the President of the ECB, has a term of office that extends into October and cannot be renewed under the existing rules. And yet, Europe cannot agree on a replacement.

Let me rephrase that. Germany cannot bring itself to support the candidate that everyone else seems to have agreed on. This is despite the fact that the Chancellor herself has praised the candidate, his policies and his credentials. Mario Draghi is the current Chair of the Financial Stability Board, the global body responsible for ensuring that there will not be another financial crisis. In terms of policy, Draghi brings everything to the table the Germans want. He is clear on the question of whether the ECB should continue to purchase bonds from bankrupt eurozone governments as Trichet has reluctantly done. He says the ECB wouldn't do that on his watch. He would be tough on inflation. What more can Germany want?

That is the question. Germany seems to want to teach Europe a lesson. Not just the 'deficit sinners' who will be cast into the fire, but France and Italy as well. The level of hysteria in the German press and in German politics against foreigners is breathtaking. They're not only mad at the so-called PIIGS, they're mad at the ECB as well. And that is run by a Frenchman.  Chancellor Merkel wanted a German candidate, Bundesbank President Axel Weber, to be the next head of the ECB. He withdrew from the running after citing opposition from Europe and from within the Bank itself to his intent to run a tight ship. And it seems in her eyes, the German chanting for European blood could only be appeased by a Teutonic captain at the helm of the ECB.

There is a saying coined by Carl Jung that what you resist persists. In the context of German hysteria, the Weber Affair blew up because it had to. Weber came across outside Germany as arrogant and contemptful of his European colleagues, echoing what Europe hates about Germany most. Only 10 years ago, Germany was an economic basket case. It flouted the rules that it demanded be applied to others. It defied the application of economic penalties in the mid-2000s when it passed one emergency budget after another. Now that it is back on track, it is screaming for obedience and punishment according to terms it would never accept for itself. 

Germany has been rightly criticised for a lack of sensibility in how it deals with its European neighbours. One might argue that there is little the German government could do in the face of such domestic revulsion for Europe. Except for one thing. Merkel forgets that Germany has been here before and chose European cooperation rather than an all-out War of the Roses. In 1991, Merkel's mentor, Chancellor Helmut Kohl, conceded minor points to the hysterical politicians who wanted to torpedo EMU. But he insisted that you had to compromise in Europe, that Germany actually had to get on with its neighbours. Germany's past, he argued, demanded that. 

Germany is at the verge of destroying Europe. It may not in the end, but it is making it weaker every day.