120 Sloane Street, London, Greater London SW1X 9BW
UK
They’re calling her the devil. They’re comparing her to Hitler. Inflammatory words, no doubt, but Europe has every reason to be livid with the German Chancellor. Angela Merkel is causing needless pain and hardship across Europe, its southern states in particular. The austerity measures she insists that nations like Greece and Portugal adopt are strangling their economies, creating huge unemployment and making it impossible for them to pay off their debts – the very reason for introducing these measures in the first place. Worse still, even though the IMF and the US are beseeching her to give Europe a desperately needed boost by opening up Germany’s economy, she refuses to do so: the plan in Germany now is to run a budget surplus. It’s madness. And it’s wrong.
That line is becoming the increasingly orthodox take on the crisis in Europe. But is it fair? Is it true? Isn’t this just another case of scapegoating Germany for being Europe’s largest and best run economy? If Germany now enjoys an unemployment rate of only 5.4% compared to Europe’s average of 12%, that’s because for the past 15 years it kept real wages down and experienced low rates of growth while in the other nations of the eurozone wages soared and their economies boomed. They recklessly disregarded the rules on fiscal discipline to which they’d signed up on joining the euro. They cocked two fingers at Berlin when it warned them what would happen. And now that it has happened is it all Germany’s fault? Angela Merkel isn’t destroying Europe: she’s one of the few elements that is keeping it together.
Speakers for the motion
Mehdi Hasan
Journalist on the New Statesman and Huffington Post, anti-austerity campaigner and author of an ebook The Debt Delusion
Euclid Tsakalotos
MP for the Syriza party in Greece, economic adviser to Alexis Tsipras, the party leader, and a professor of economics at the University of Athens
Speakers against the motion
Christine Ockrent
Belgian-born journalist and former chief operating officer of France 24 and RFI. She was also editor in chief of the weekly news magazine L’Express
Remaining speaker to be announced.
Chair
Nik Gowing
BBC World News presenter
All speakers are subject to change.