{"id":13769,"date":"2015-10-23T19:01:23","date_gmt":"2015-10-24T00:01:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=13769"},"modified":"2015-10-23T19:01:23","modified_gmt":"2015-10-24T00:01:23","slug":"schaubles-gathering-storm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=13769","title":{"rendered":"Sch\u00e4uble\u2019s Gathering Storm"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sch\u00e4uble\u2019s Gathering Storm<\/a><\/h3>\n

Europe\u2019s crisis is poised to enter its most dangerous phase. After forcing Greece to accept another \u201cextend-and-pretend\u201d bailout agreement, fresh battle lines are being drawn. And, with the refugee influx exposing the damage caused by divergent economic prospects and sky-high youth unemployment in Europe\u2019s periphery, the ramifications are ominous, as recent statements by three European politicians \u2013 Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, French Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron, and German Finance Minister\u00a0Wolfgang Sch\u00e4uble<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 have made clear.<\/p>\n

Renzi has come close to demolishing, at least rhetorically, the fiscal rules that Germany has defended for so long. In a remarkable act of defiance,\u00a0he threatened<\/a>\u00a0that if the European Commission rejected Italy\u2019s national budget, he would re-submit it without change.<\/p>\n

This was not the first time Renzi had alienated Germany\u2019s leaders. And it was no accident that his statement followed a months-long effort by his own finance minister, Pier Carlo Padoan, to demonstrate Italy\u2019s commitment to the eurozone\u2019s German-backed \u201crules.\u201d Renzi understands that adherence to German-inspired parsimony is leading Italy\u2019s economy and public finances into deeper stagnation, accompanied by further deterioration of the debt-to-GDP ratio. A consummate politician, Renzi knows that this is a short path to electoral disaster.<\/p>\n

Macron is very different from Renzi in both style and substance. A banker-turned-politician, he is President Fran\u00e7ois Hollande\u2019s only minister who combines a serious understanding of France\u2019s and Europe\u2019s macroeconomic challenges with a reputation in Germany as a reformer and skillful interlocutor. So when he speaks of an\u00a0impending religious war<\/a>\u00a0in Europe, between the Calvinist German-dominated northeast and the largely Catholic periphery, it is time to take notice.<\/p>\n

Sch\u00e4uble\u2019s recent statements about the European economy\u2019s current trajectory similarly highlight Europe\u2019s cul-de-sac. For years, Sch\u00e4uble has played a long game to realize his vision of the optimal architecture Europe can achieve within the political and cultural constraints that he takes as given.<\/p>\n

Read more at https:\/\/www.project-syndicate.org\/commentary\/germany-versus-france-italy-by-yanis-varoufakis-2015-10#BYuW6MBRmDtgTE3W.99<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sch\u00e4uble\u2019s Gathering Storm Europe\u2019s crisis is poised to enter its most dangerous phase. After forcing Greece to accept another \u201cextend-and-pretend\u201d bailout agreement, fresh battle lines are being drawn. And, with the refugee influx exposing the damage caused by divergent economic prospects and sky-high youth unemployment in Europe\u2019s periphery, the ramifications are ominous, as recent statements […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[195,284,353,359,1167,8402,4128,2921],"class_list":["post-13769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-geopolitics","tag-debt","tag-european-union","tag-gdp","tag-germany","tag-greece","tag-project-syndicate","tag-wolfgang-schaeuble","tag-yanis-varoufakis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13769"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13770,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13769\/revisions\/13770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}