The rift between France and Germany can’t be papered over any longer

[marmar]

(MarketWatch) A “temporary” Greek exit from economic and monetary union, proposed by Germany, supported by many German-leaning euro members, yet hotly opposed by France and Italy, was narrowly averted in the marathon negotiations that ended on July 13. But the suggestion may still eventually decide Greece’s fate in the euro.

The divergence between the two countries traditionally seen as the motor of the European Union demonstrates new fragility in Franco-German relations that looks likely to cast a shadow over European cooperation for some time to come.

Wolfgang Schaeuble, the German finance minister, whose hard line on Greece ended up determining Chancellor Angela Merkel’s negotiating stance, has made clear in the week since the ill-tempered European summit on Greece that he still favors a Greek exit from the euro

Once it would have feared European isolation, but Germany now puts forward views opposed by France with demonstrative self-confidence. This reflects not only manifest German economic strength but also EMU membership by several smaller nations from central and eastern Europe that take an even more robust attitude than Germany on the Greek economy.

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In the years since unification, even as the basic ties of post-war reconciliation begun to fade, the French and Germans have been bound together by a curious symbiosis. France needed an outwardly robust Germany to camouflage the extent to which the French had fallen from grace in the economic and political stakes since the 1980s.

And for Germany, the appendage of an apparently confident (but in reality seriously weakened) France has been a profoundly useful device to conceal from the rest of the world an inconvenient rise in German power. ...............(more)

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-rift-between-france-and-germany-cant-be-papered-over-any-longer-2015-07-21?link=MW_home_latest_news