German businesses could steer the country out of the eurozone

Washington Post
June 5, 2010

Must Mattheus Schneider's ice cream shop bear responsibility for the future of Greece?

With the euro fighting a crisis that continues to push its value lower, that question about the willingness of German taxpayers and businesses to stand behind economically weaker nations with which they share the euro as a currency could determine whether the continent's decade-old monetary union survives its recent shock or begins to tatter.

Germany's political leadership has pledged the country's credit to back a bailout of Greece as well as a separate nearly trillion-dollar fund to help other countries, but the larger issue of shared responsibility within the eurozone remains to be joined -- and will be central to the future of an area considered one of the pillars of the global economy.

More