Top economists warn Germany that EMU crisis as dangerous as ever
Council on Foreign Relations compares Germany’s hardline stance with US policy towards Britain at the end of the Second World War
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
TelegraphUK
09 Apr 2014
The eurozone debt crisis is deepening and threatens to re-erupt on a larger scale when the liquidity cycle turns, a leading panel of economists warned in a clash of views with German officials in Berlin.
“Debts above 130pc of GDP for Italy and 170pc for Greece are a recipe for disaster once we go into the next downturn,” said Professor Charles Wyplosz, from Geneva University.
“Today’s politicians believe the crisis is over and don’t want to hear any more about it, but they have not tackled the core issues of fiscal union and public debt,” he said, speaking at Euromoney’s annual Germany conference.
Ludger Schuknecht, director-general of the German finance ministry, insisted that the debt-stricken states of the eurozone are well on the way to recovery, ending their EU-IMF rescue programmes successfully one by one. There is no need for any major shift in policy. “The strategy has been right. We need to bring down debt and this is now consensus,” he said.
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