printThe word for the hatred/fear of Germans is Germanophobia. Europeans are certainly guilty of this anti-German sentiment. It is rooted in, I believe, their jealousy of the workhorse of Europe: Germany. Moreover, these brazen haters seem to think that Germany’s distant, belligerent history makes the German people fair game for gratuitous hatred.
Duly, the programing note for today’s segment of BBC News’ HARDtalk promised that the host, Stephen Sackur, will be asking “the senior economic adviser to chancellor Angela Merkel if Germany has used its power wisely in the high stakes showdown over Greece’s debt.”
Sackur is a smart bloke with a slanted perspective. The segment was thus given over to the brutal bullying of a country that is carrying the deadweights of the EU: the PIIGS of the Eurozone—Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain—are living at the expense of their more industrious, austere neighbors to the north. Germany, in particular, is an industrial dynamo whose highly-skilled workforce produces technology in the first rank.
As Reuters reported, the “Euro zone finance ministers agreed in principle on Friday to extend Greece’s financial rescue by four months. … European Union paymaster Germany, Greece’s biggest creditor, had demanded ‘significant improvements’ in reform commitments by Athens before it would accept an extension of euro zone funding.”
BILD, Germany’s biggest tabloid and one of the highest-circulation newspapers in the world, is not happy about the support Germany’s political class is giving the Greek deal.
The Greeks have had a lot to say about their democratic right to reject the “deeply unpopular austerity measures.” What of the German people? Do they have a democratic right to refuse to be roped into working to support the Greeks?