Are German elites secretly maneuvering Europe to political union?

[ingemann]

"Secretly" what do you think this is; "the Elders of Zion"? No the Germans are quite open about seeking closer integration. In fact it's a important element in why Merkel has gotten a lot of internal criticism in CDU, because she haven't been active enough in seeking close integration as a tool to deal with the crisis.

[ingemann]

"Secretly" what do you think this is; "the Elders of Zion"? No the Germans are quite open about seeking closer integration. In fact it's a important element in why Merkel has gotten a lot of internal criticism in CDU, because she haven't been active enough in seeking close integration as a tool to deal with the crisis.

It's secret in the sense that when the euro was introduced they didn't say "the idea here is to plunge Europe into economic disaster so we can turn it into a proper federation". Cause then it's unlikely that it would have gone through.

And according to Prodi this is actually what they thought, more or less. Sweden's biggest, very pro-EU, paper reprimanded him for stating it publicly. Ah. euro-lovers. They're a weird bunch.

There's a difference between arrange a economical crisis and use a already existing one to reach ones goals.
...and honestly you need to be idiot if you (general you not you personal) think that the economic crisis have been intentional cause by any sitting government (they had no interest in  losing power). And not to be rude and I say this as another small state citizen, I'm rather sure that Prodi don't really care that much about what a Swedish newspaper thinks. EU have never hidden that they seeks an ever closer union, in fact they have written in down from the first treaties and if that come as a shock or surprise to anybody, well I suggest maybe they should read or listen to what have been said for the last 55 years. In fact it's what I find ridiculous about EU opposition and the belief that there's some kind of major EU conspiracy,  EU and EEC has played with open card about wanting a full federation from day one, and if any state disagreed with that they could stay out of or leave EU.

[ingemann]

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.

At some point you have to decide whether you think they are the Elders of Frankfurt or a bunch of morons who don't get economy as well as you. Or you could lower the hyperbole down to something a little less shrill.
In my opinion they are just between a rock and a hard place. On one side they wish keep the markets from getting a hysterical episode again, but they also have a population who have no wish to pay the Greeks again, especially not after the Greeks pulled the Nazi card. Of course there's also the element that the German doesn't wish to end up in the same situation 20 years into the future, if they had just bought the Greek debt, and they wished even less that a common Eurobond pulled Germany down in the future, because it would allow more state behave like Greece. So they try to make time for Greece to begin its reforms and prayed that the market would find something else to get a hysterical episode about, so the could get room and time to push greater structural changes through and maybe get a little growth going in South Europe.