Washington Post
November 9, 2011
Italy and Greece are not Germany. Until recently, Germany did not want them to be. They were lands of the sunny south, of less work-driven, more pleasure-oriented cultures. To Germans, they smelled of sex (see Thomas Mann) and good food. Consider, as one illustration of Europe’s cultural divide, the argument recently advanced by Italy’s embattled (and perhaps outgoing) prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, to demonstrate that his nation’s economy is actually in good shape: “Our restaurants are full of people,” he said. I doubt there’s a single German leader, of any political persuasion, who would measure Germany’s economic well-being by restaurant patronage.
Until the crisis of 2008, Europe’s gap between north and south was fine by the north. After all, a lot of those diners in Italy’s restaurants were — and still are — Germans. And if Italy’s more restaurant-centric economy increasingly lagged behind Germany’s uber-efficient industrial economy in growth, productivity and incomes, that was all right, too: Europe could encompass a two-speed economy. Vive, as the French would say, la difference.
Today, however, it’s apparent that the creators of the European Union, and of the monetary union in particular, failed to grasp that their creation would one day turn on them and demand more of a single continental standard for economic performance. It would demand that Italy cease to be Italy, and Greece, Greece. That’s why the turmoil of the past week is bound to persist. The agenda before Europe is to square circles. And those circles include entire peoples who may not want to be squared.
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