Germany declares economic war

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Economics Last updated: September 23rd, 2009

141 Comments

If there are any German readers of this blog, I would like to know what they think of the latest breath-taking provocations of German finance minister Peer Steinbrück.


Ill-informed belligerence: Peer Steinbrück

Remember that Herr Steinbrück is not a journalist, pundit, or back-bench maverick. He speaks officially for the German government and for the German nation on the international stage.

Every assertion that he made about Britain in his interview with Stern is either factually wrong, or such a serious distortion of events that it amounts to a smear. Furthermore, it was quite threatening.

What he said, in effect, is that Germany will marshal its forces to ensure that a chunk of the British economy is shut down - whatever the social consequences. This is the closest thing I have seen to a declaration of economic warfare in Western Europe in my lifetime.

“There is clearly a lobby in London that wants to defend its competitive advantage tooth and nail.â€