Germans Don’t Love the Euro

When the euro came into existence in the late 1990s, Germany’s deutschmark was a very strong currency. The strength of the currency made German products quite expensive to import.

What the Germans have forgotten — or perhaps didn’t know in the first place — is that the European Central Bank, which was created to control the euro, made huge low-interest loans to other eurozone members like Greece and Portugal that enabled the citizens of those countries to purchase all those German-made goods. That ended a severe recession in Germany and put the country back on a sound economic footing. The cheap money infusion didn’t work out so well for Greece and Portugal though.

Most Germans, however, believe in the European Union. Some 69% of Germans like the EU, compared with 56% of the French and 59% of the Poles.

Paul Ausick