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| Europe |
| Debt Aid Package for Europe Took Nudge From Washington |
| 2010-05-11 |
| PARIS -- President Obama had just flown into Hampton, Va., Sunday morning to deliver a commencement address. But before he donned his silky academic robes, he was on the phone with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, offering urgent advice -- and some not so subtle prodding -- that Europe needed to try something big. Weeks of hesitant half-steps to address Greece's debt problems had only worsened market worries about the euro, and were threatening the still-fragile economic recoveries in the United States and Asia. Now, Mr. Obama told Mrs. Merkel that the Europeans needed an overwhelming financial rescue to end speculation that the euro -- and European unity -- could crumble "He was trying to convey that he knew these were politically difficult steps that the leaders there had to take, that he had gone through them as well," said one senior administration official familiar with the conversation. "And that, from his experience, trying to get out ahead as much as possible was the right way to go." That call was part of what a senior Treasury Department official called "one long conversation" with European leaders, who over an extraordinary weekend of late nights and early mornings overcame German resistance and agreed to a wholesale expansion of the bloc's political and financial mission. Bending the rules, they backed the stability of all 16 countries that use the euro with loan guarantees adding up to nearly $1 trillion. In the process, the European Union, under crisis conditions, moved fitfully toward more centralization, toward a French vision of an economic government for the region. It is a role not totally unlike the one that the federal government in the United States played during the early stages of the financial crisis in 2008. Oh yes, the highly successful "French vision." Shame it is, Barry can't spend a bit more time exploring solutions for our own financial mess. More at the link. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #1 And in the process of nudging Merkel he managed to get her to lose her party's majority, thereby ensuring a more left wing German govt soon (possibly). Win-win for the big O. |
| Posted by: lotp 2010-05-11 20:00 |