EU officials: we are not a basket case!
One of the notable psychological elements evident in the Eurozone crisis is the intense frustration many European leaders feel at being tarred with the recklessness of the most profligate EU members. That frustration boiled over most obviously when U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner lectured European finance ministers about their responsibility to resolve the crisis. Several ...
One of the notable psychological elements evident in the Eurozone crisis is the intense frustration many European leaders feel at being tarred with the recklessness of the most profligate EU members. That frustration boiled over most obviously when U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner lectured European finance ministers about their responsibility to resolve the crisis. Several normally circumspect finance ministers couldn't help but fume to the press about the absurdity of the United States lecturing others on debt issues.
One of the notable psychological elements evident in the Eurozone crisis is the intense frustration many European leaders feel at being tarred with the recklessness of the most profligate EU members. That frustration boiled over most obviously when U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner lectured European finance ministers about their responsibility to resolve the crisis. Several normally circumspect finance ministers couldn’t help but fume to the press about the absurdity of the United States lecturing others on debt issues.
The frustration is evident again in the joint statement issued today by European Council president Herman van Rompuy and European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso. Addressing the G20 progress, the two men tried to remind that world that, in many, many ways, Europe is quite financially responsible:
One should thereby not forget that the EU is not contributing to global imbalances: the EU has no large current account deficits, continues to have low inflation, has generally lower debt levels than some of our major trading partners and the Eurozone has an exchange rate which is driven by market forces.
However, as the crisis is global, nobody can on its own bear the burden of a solution, neither the EU nor any other player. Today the European Union will call on each and every member of the G20 to do its part.
David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist
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