Anyone else want to chime in? I'm increasingly convinced that Schauble and Merkel are deliberately engineering this entire crisis, timed to peak between the end of 2012 and mid-2013, in order to give them maximal leverage over a new EU treaty for fiscal and political union. No one else has a clue what is going on in Berlin.
This reminds me a bit of a local FDP politician (the Swiss FDP, for the record) who has recently told my father that Merkel is pushing for the "Endsieg" by trying to increase Germany's influence in Europe. Of course, that comment was made in jest and is clearly over the top, but as is the case with such jokes there is often a certain degree of seriousness involved.
