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“The woman who went out into the cold”: the expression inSüddeutsche Zeitungrefers to the undeniably frosty reception for Angela Merkel’s performance at the European Council on 30 January.
Although largely unaided, the Chancellor has succeeded in imposing the fiscal compact on her European partners in just two months, but from now on, notes Spiegel Online, she will have to contend with “the nasty image of an austerity commissar,” who “stirs up fears of foreign domination in Europe.”
At issue is the proposal to send a budget commissar to Athens to oblige the Greeks to take control of their finances. Spiegeldubs the measure "political poison“, while Tagesspiegeldescribes it as "an admission of failure” that will give added fuel to the Nazi comparisons currently flourishing in Greece.
If only it was simply a matter of historical insensitivity, then Germany’s jab at the Greeks could be remedied by adroit diplomacy. But that is not the case. The proposal clearly illustrates that there is no longer any desire to preserve the monetary community. Now it is a matter of rich against poor and the strong against the weak. […] The Greeks already have to deal with the the EU/IMF/ECB troika, and they have no need of another interloper to do up their accounts on a blackboard. The aid package currently under discussion is supposed to strike a balance between reforms and growth. And as such, it will require plenty of money, time, and even more importantly, trust.
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