Over the past 18 months, Germany has tried every trick to limit its contribution to the euro bail-outs. It has pushed self-defeating austerity on to bankrupt countries. It has called in the International Monetary Fund. It has tried to pass the hat to China. It has discovered an improbable and futile taste for leveraging up the European Financial Stability Facility. But now these tricks have uniformly failed, and the continent approaches the abyss – with Germany itself suffering the humiliation of a failed bond auction. It is time for Germany to decide once and for all: how much will it pay to save Europe?
過去1年半以來，德國已經使盡了一切手段，以減少自己對歐元紓困方案的付出。迄今爲止，德國已迫使那些破產國施行損害它們本國利益的緊縮措施，召來了國際貨幣基金組織(IMF)，試圖向中國討錢，還做了一次成功可能性不大又毫無意義的嘗試——提高歐洲金融穩定安排(EFSF)的舉債額度。如今，種種花招均宣告失敗，歐洲瀕臨崩潰的邊緣——連德國自己也遭遇了國債拍賣遇冷的尷尬。德國是時候該做個決定、一次性解決問題了：到底打算爲拯救歐洲出多少錢？