Berlin keeps unearthly hush on eurozone crisis

Writer says that sitting in Berlin in the midst of the eurozone crisis in 2012 feels like being trapped in the eye of a hurricane. All around Europe the storms of alarm and despondency rage, but in the German capital there is an unearthly hush.

No one seriously doubts that Berlin holds the key to the crisis: as the largest and most prosperous economy in the eurozone, Germany is the one country that can provide the guarantees needed to stabilise the 17-nation European monetary union.

But it is not just economic leadership that the federal republic enjoys inside the European Union. It now has political leadership of the EU thrust upon it. That is a situation in which many Germans feel deeply uncomfortable. They want to be a big Switzerland, prosperous and neutral, not the decisive European power that dictates the rules to the rest.

ESO: Background information: EU divisions threaten aid for Greece / Greek rhetoric turns into battle of wills http://www.europeansources.info/record/eu-divisions-threaten-aid-for-greece-greek-rhetoric-turns-into-battle-of-wills/

ESO: Background information: Germany faces a machine from hell http://www.europeansources.info/record/germany-faces-a-machine-from-hell/

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