Intelligence Squared

They're calling her the devil. Inflammatory words, but Europe has every reason to be livid with the German Chancellor. Angela Merkel’s austerity measures are strangling the economies of the southern nations of Europe, creating huge unemployment and preventing them from paying off their debts – the very reason for introducing these measures in the first place. Worse still, she refuses to give Europe a desperately needed boost by opening up Germany’s economy, and now plans to run a budget surplus in Germany. No wonder her recent electoral victory was greeted with gloom in Greece and other struggling eurozone countries. But is this a fair take on the crisis in Europe? Isn’t this just another case of scapegoating Germany for being Europe’s largest and best run economy? Those other eurozone nations recklessly disregarded the rules on fiscal discipline to which they’d signed up on joining the euro and now they blame Germany for the woes they brought upon themselves. Angela Merkel isn’t destroying Europe: she’s... —