Guardian
October 20, 2011
Such has been the propensity of Europe to shoot itself in the foot at every stage of the sovereign debt crisis that nothing it does now comes as much of a surprise anymore. Yet the story, coming out of Germany, that Angela Merkel would consider postponing this weekend's summit in Brussels is perhaps the daftest idea floated so far.
It won't happen, of course. Financial markets, already up one minute, down the next, would completely freak out if Europe's leaders decided that they needed to come up with some sort of plan to prevent Italy, Spain and perhaps France from being sucked into the maelstrom. The rally of the past couple of weeks has been entirely driven by the idea that Europe will finally get its act together now that the single currency is in a life-or-death struggle.
What then explains the story being put around by Die Welt? Almost certainly, the Germans are using the threat of a postponement to put pressure on the French to water down their demands for Sunday's meeting. Paris would like the European Central Bank to use all its firepower to scare the financial markets into submission, but Berlin is sniffy about that idea.
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