After five years of austerity the European Union is today riven by cultural, political and, increasingly, nationalistic divisions that may be coming to a head in the clash between Athens and BerlinShe may be more associated with its horrors than any other politician in Europe, but Angela Merkel hates austerity. The word, that is. The crisis gave German the ugly term Austerität. When the German chancellor pronounces it, she wrinkles her nose in distaste, affects incomprehension, seeks distance from it.Sparsamkeit, or thrift, is more her thing. Merkel sees that as an old-fashioned household virtue, which she has elevated into national and European policy. But when it comes to the formula that Europe needs most of all, Merkel’s magic word is “competitiveness”. The belt-tightening, in Greece as almost everywhere else, is but a means to that end. Continue reading...
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