The irony is that Germany’s anxieties about price stability, which underlie the EU’s embrace of austerity, are entirely misplaced: German inflation could scarcely be lower. With German unemployment, too, hitting record lows, while joblessness hits record highs in Italy and remains at obscene levels in Greece and Spain, what has emerged is a two-tier Europe, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government calling the shots.
讽刺的是，德国对价格稳定的焦虑——这也是欧盟采取紧缩的原因——完全是无的放矢：德国通胀低得不能再低了。德国的失业率也处于历史最低水平，而意大利失业率处于历史最高水平，希腊和西班牙的失业率也高得可怕，这造就了一个两级欧洲，德国总理默克尔的政府掌握生杀大权。