GERMANY HAS strongly defended its response to the Greek debt debacle, brushing off claims that its early reluctance to intervene magnified the crisis.
As MPs debate legislation to facilitate the country’s participation in the €440 billion guarantee scheme for distressed euro members, interior minister Thomas de Maizière said Berlin’s stance will in the long run reduce the overall cost of the Greek rescue.
“If you give in too early, most of the time it’s more expensive than if you give in later, especially if it violates the very principles we seek to uphold,” he told reporters. “Spending money too early would be way too expensive.”
A rescue too early would have been an invitation to speculators, he said. It was only after Greece agreed to draconian austerity measures that Germany agreed to support the creation of a rescue scheme and insisted on the International Monetary Fund’s involvement.
Mr de Maizière, an ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel, said Berlin’s position on Greece and the creation of a bigger fund for all euro countries was in keeping with a reassessment of its European role following the country’s reunification 20 years ago. “The biggest net payer in Europe has to formulate its interests in Europe,” he said.
Germany was as entitled to defend its interests in Europe as other large states such as France, Italy and Britain. “Germany is going to act just as others will in Europe – and others do – and that doesn’t mean being anti-European.” The country was economically strong but politically weak prior to reunification, he said.
“It wasn’t really a sovereign state in its own right. Germany didn’t have to shoulder much international responsibilities. This was convenient for neighbouring countries and other partners. At least until 1990, a part of our foreign policy was replaced by money. We called this cheque-book diplomacy.”
Citing Germany’s non-combat involvement in the military campaign in Afghanistan, he said it was only happening now that Germany’s engagement with Europe and the world was changing.
Germany’s relationship with France was the country’s most important relationship in Europe, he said. “It also remains that we don’t always agree.” Asked about President Nicolas Sarkozy’s apparent unhappiness with Dr Merkel’s response to the Greek crisis, he said: “The combination of being quick and thorough can be very valuable for Europe.” A key principle underpinning the euro was that member states did not have to rely on each other, he said. That states should be liable for the result of their activities was in keeping with the basic principles underpinning the market economy, in which companies were liable for their business but also reaped the benefits.
“We have to ask critical questions now as to whether there is any reason to deviate from that critical position and philosophy. There is one reason for that and that is that the euro is in danger.”
The German authorities had to be mindful of the country’s powerful constitutional court and public opinion, he said.
Mr de Maizière represented Germany at the EU meeting that resolved to set up the general rescue fund after finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble took ill as he arrived in Brussels. The talks were “very hard” and “very tough”, he said. “We knew we wouldn’t have a majority of all member countries at the beginning.”
Mr de Maizière suggested the newly installed Conservative-Lib Dem coalition in Britain posed little threat to Europe, but acknowledged deep divisions over financial regulation. British Euroscepticism was sometimes helpful to Germany and other member states, he said.
“The new government will start a little Eurosceptic and become more and more Eurofriendly.”
