Germany vs. Italy: It’s time to take a closer look at the clichés which dominate coverage of the Euro-crisis

Reliable Germans vs foxy Italians?

Alessandra Nucci (*)

When East Germany was incorporated into a new Germany, each East German was given a “welcome” sum of Deutschmarks, which, small as it may have been, was multiplied by their entire population. Integrating the welfare system and everything else into the West was a huge effort which Germans are still paying a tax for. Halfway through this decade they will have spent the equivalent of their entire GDP on the recovery of East Germany, which is, by the way, the homeland of both Kanzlerin Angela Merkel and of the current President of the Republic. Germany can be seen to behave nationalistically, while demanding that everybody else’s allegiance be transnational.

(*) Alessandra Nucci is an Italian writer and freelance journalist.




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