Germany: Fiscal Sanity Can Be a Source of Confidence

Angela Merkel

On a late June afternoon in Berlin, Germany’s Angela Merkel has come to the main conference hall in the Chancellery building to deliver a stark message on the need to reduce budget deficits. “If there’s another crisis, we won’t be able to pay for it unless we get onto a path of sustainable growth,” says Merkel, her hands resting above the national eagle emblem on the lectern. While the deficit in Germany, at about 4.5 percent of gross domestic product this year, is smaller than those in most euro zone countries, the chancellor is not satisfied, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its September issue. The road to prosperity begins with austerity, she says, and Germany will show its neighbors how it’s done. Read more here:

Germany: Fiscal Sanity Can Be a Source of Confidence