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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Europe's financial crisis feeds racial tensions
Sunny south set against gloomy north
BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Maybe the problem is those southerners lolling in the Mediterranean sun who overspent and tax-dodged their way to ruin. Or maybe it's the northerners, rigid beyond reason, so gloomy in their own lives that they're determined to see the southerners suffer.
Such, at least, are the resentful stereotypes increasingly jumping from pub conversations and tabloid pages into mainstream political discourse.
It's a sign a psychological fissure between northern and southern countries in the European Union is deepening under the strain of the financial crisis. Analysts say the rift threatens Europe's currency union as much as interest rates and deficits.
"National resentments in Europe are rising to dramatic levels," said Vincent Forest, a London-based economist with the Economist Intelligence Unit. "By taking so much time in solving the economic crisis, the Europeans are creating a political and social crisis."
The 17 countries that use the euro have been struggling for three years with the problem of debt: Some countries can't cope while others have plenty of demands around how best to manage it. Economies across the region face deepening recessions. Spain and Italy, the two chief trouble spots, are threatened with a financial collapse that could tear the 13-year-old currency union apart and rock the global economy.
Fears are mounting that Spain may be the next country to seek a bailout, following Ireland, Greece, Portugal and Cyprus. Italy faces the daunting task of keeping a handle on its huge debt load while fighting a recession.
In Greece, which has been in recession for five years, Germany is seen as the unbending force that has insisted on a diet of ever-increasing budget cuts that have thrown more and more Greeks out of work. Politicians and journalists have even alluded to the Third Reich -- the Nazi regime -- fuelling public anger against the Germans.
In Italy, on Monday, the respected La Stampa newspaper ran an article that used a derogatory term for Germans. The article cited an adage that says Germans love Italians but don't admire them, while Italians admire Germans but don't love them.
Among the euro countries, the Germans have been most insistent on enforcing austerity, warning against bailing out countries that have not suffered enough for their sins -- and therefore may be tempted to lapse again.
German condescension toward southern culture is not limited to the economy. In January, the weekly Der Spiegel ran a commentary on the capsized Concordia cruise liner, whose Italian captain is being investigated for manslaughter and abandoning ship while passengers were aboard.
"Does it surprise you that the captain was Italian?" the columnist wrote, sparking outrage in Italy.
It is primarily Germany blocking a plan for the eurozone to pool resources to issue joint debt -- "eurobonds" -- which would deepen European integration while easing the crisis.
Spain will shortly begin to receive a bailout loan of up to 100 billion euros from the eurozone for its banking sector. Germany is seen as the main author of strict government spending and tax conditions accompanying the loan.
-- The Associated Press
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 9, 2012 A9
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