Wall Street Journal
February 21, 2012
With the applause following the second Greek bailout still ringing in EU leaders’ ears, traders and analysts have already begun talking about the possibility of a third. They know the numbers don’t add up: Greece will eventually need even more money to cover its debts.
And those who doubt that Germany can find the will to cough up more funds should remember a critical and often overlooked point: the fate of Greece lies less in financial numbers than in the global geopolitics that underpin the Greco-German relationship.
As Greece’s main paymaster, Germany’s leaders are full of bluster over Greece’s fiscal misdeeds. But when it comes to keeping Greece in the embrace of Western Europe and free from the influence of outside powers, Berlin will likely be willing to tolerate the financial cost of keeping Greece in the euro zone.
After all, when you compare economic price tags, another bailout for Greece would be a pittance compared with what Germans endured during reunification, or the cost to the Deutsche Bundesbank helping the U.K. defend the pound during the exchange rate mechanism crisis in 1992.
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