For more than thirty years, Germany has been the main pillar of the eurozone’s fiscal credibility. It was not simply a matter of public finances. Berlin embodied the very philosophy on which the single currency was based: limited debt, contained deficits, and a central bank independent of government financing. The Maastricht criteria — a public deficit below 3% of GDP and debt limited to 60% of GDP — bear the distinct mark of this German vision of monetary stability. This philosophy was not limited to economics. It was deeply rooted in German history. The traumas of Weimar hyperinflation and the subsequent collapse ... (full story)