Britain and US shouldn't criticise Greece - ECB

Great interview of Jürgen Stark (chief economist of the ECB) by Spiegel Online. He's a very funny guy for a central banker (maybe I'm revealing too much about my sense of humour).
SPIEGEL: You are maneuvering yourself around an answer to the main question: What happens if Greece doesn't make it?
Stark: I do not think that is the most important question, but I will answer it with a clear statement: The country must and will make it.
More importantly, he is very clear that Federal Reserve-style monetary expansion is not on the cards for the ECB, and that he thinks eurozone governments should be cutting deficits faster. Also:
Stark: ...I would like to point to one aspect in this context: Great Britain has a budget deficit of the same magnitude as Greece's. The US budget deficit is also more than 10 percent of GDP. All advanced economies are currently having problems. In fact, it is astonishing to see where most of the criticism of the euro is coming from at the moment.
SPIEGEL: It sounds as if you suspect that the Anglo-American media is behind the attacks.
Stark: At any rate, much of what they are printing reads as if they were trying to deflect attention away from problems in their own backyard.
Oooh, well that's us told!

Comments

Anonymous said…
Reading the interview, it is thinly veiled that Stark has a very strong professional (personal?) incentive to maintain the status quo combination of the EU and the Euro.

I've always been a Euroskeptic, but I'm a big fan of EU-style federalism...which could continue to thrive independent of monetary integration.
13 February 2010 at 21:43
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