Die gipfellose Zeit ist vorüber und die professionellen Euro-Retter sind wieder an die Arbeit gegangen. Nach dem ersten Krisentreffen der EU-Regierungschefs in diesem Jahr ist die Zukunft der europäischen Gemeinschaftswährung ebenso ungewiss wie zuvor - nicht trotz, sondern wegen des vereinbarten Fiskalpakts. Die Europäer bemühen sich nach wie vor um die Lösung der falschen Krise.

Einstweilen hat sich die deutsche Darstellung der Dinge durchgesetzt. Nach Auffassung der Kanzlerin Angela Merkel wurde die Krise dadurch verursacht, dass die Peripherieländer über ihre Verhältnisse gelebt haben. Sie drängte daher auf strengere Haushaltsvorschriften als Gegenleistung für eine weitere Finanzierung der verschiedenen Rettungsschirme. Vereinfacht gesagt: die Deutschen sind nur dann bereit, für andere Länder zu zahlen, wenn diese bereit sind, ihrerseits deutscher zu werden.

Es gibt nur ein Problem mit Merkels Logik. Sie beruht auf einer falschen Voraussetzung. Die hohe Staatsverschuldung in den Krisenländern ist ein Symptom für eine weit schwerere …

To the many explanations of the great European crisis, US political scientist Francis Fukuyama has just added another one. In a speech at the University of Geneva, now republished in The American Interest, he made a number of observations: that the EU was an elite-driven project; that there had never been much grassroots support for a European superstate; and that national identities remained stronger than pan-European idealism.

All of this is correct, and in fact Fukuyama is not the first commentator to come to these conclusions. However, in his speech he also made one claim that, frankly, puzzled me: “The EU in many respects was created as a technocratic exercise done for purposes of economic efficiency.” Really? Was European integration the result of a …

It is one of the most used phrases in the eurozone crisis: Buying time. The measures taken by European politicians over the past two years have obviously not solved the problems. Instead, they provided temporary relief – sometimes for a few weeks, sometimes only for a couple of days. They literally ‘bought time’.

As consumers we know that buying something is different from getting it for free. There is always a price one has to pay for one’s purchases. Otherwise they would be gifts. And though this is a truism, the price of buying time is usually overlooked in the eurozone crisis. Instead, the criticism focuses on the timing, the size or the nature of the measures. ‘Too little, too late’ is a criticism that is much more often heard than ‘too costly’.

After years of bought time for Europe, the bill for holding off the …

According to the United Nations’ ‘Human Development Index,’ Norway is the most developed country in the world. The Scandinavians put even Australia in second place. But what is all that development worth when ordinary Norwegians can’t afford to bake Christmas cookies anymore?

Wie geht es 2012 mit dem Euro weiter? Ganz einfach: Alles wird gut. Wirklich.

Hier ist meine Vorhersage für das Jahr der finalen Eurorettung.

What a glorious distraction, what a splendid sideshow! What had been announced as the summit to finally solve the euro crisis became a face-off between Britain and the continent.

After David Cameron had banged Margaret Thatcher’s handbag on the negotiating table, metaphorically speaking, nobody was talking about eurobonds, big bazookas or lenders of last resort any more. Instead, observers were wondering what Cameron’s ‘no’ to a new EU treaty meant for Britain, Europe and Britain in Europe.

But perhaps that was precisely the result that Merkel and Sarkozy desired? Maybe David Cameron did not jump from the European Union cliff as much as he was pushed over the edge? Judging by the British prime minister’s …

The whole world is watching to see what Germany’s next steps in the euro crisis will be. Will Angela Merkel finally agree to a Europe-wide debt pooling? Will the Bundesbank let the ECB at last print the trillions needed by bankrupt governments? Can the German coalition survive the Free Democrats’ referendum on the new euro rescue mechanism?

No doubt Germany is the pivotal player in the eurozone’s death struggle. Whatever Germany does next may keep the euro alive, inflate it, blow it up, condemn Italy to debt deflation, spark civil unrest in Greece, tip French banks into the abyss, end the European Union, or maybe even lead the continent to economic recovery.

But what are the Germans really concerned with? Well, judging by the most reported news stories …

Will die Bundesbank die Euro-Peripherie weiter stützen, dann muss sie bald anfangen, ihre Goldreserven zu verkaufen. Das ist keine Verschwörungstheorie, sondern liegt nur in der Logik der bisherigen Krisenpolitik:

Aaron Tornell, Professor of Economics at University of California, Los Angeles, and
Frank Westermann, Professor of International Economic Policy at the Institute of Empirical Economic Research, University of Osnabrueck:
Eurozone Crisis, Act Two: Has the Bundesbank reached its limit?

Deutschland sitzt bereits heute auf Forderungen gegen das Eurosystem in Höhe von 496 Mrd. Euro, die im Falle eines Eurokollapses wahrscheinlich abzuschreiben wären. Dann müsste der deutsche Steuerzahler am Ende die Bundesbank retten, um den Zusammenbruch des deutschen Bankensystems zu verhindern.

Interessiert das in Deutschland eigentlich jemanden? Manchmal hat man aus der Außensicht auf Deutschland den Eindruck, dass es dort wichtiger …