Merkel’s Davos Speech More of the Same

German Chancellor Angela Merkel officially opened the Davos World Economic Forum this morning, telling the crowd that she is “absolutely convinced” that the Eurozone will escape from its current crisis. As usual, the devil is in the details.

Merkel does not believe that increasing the size of the Eurozone’s financial firewall is the answer. Rather, she refers back to an agreement reached in December that would add €200 billion to the Eurozone’s firewall in exchange for changes to the European Union that would require every member nation to adopt a debt ceiling in the nation’s constitution and give the European Commission and the EU court authority to enforce the changes.

Merkel did not offer anything new in today’s speech, despite the fact that she said that the Eurozonbe needs to engage in a “big rethink” of its role in the global economy.

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