Cheap stereotyping poisons well of euro recovery sentiment

As if the euro does not have enough problems, politicians across Europe are fanning the flames of the crisis with broadsides of aggressive rhetoric, heightening resentment, prejudice and suspicion just when the continent needs to pull together.

Greek newspapers air anti-German sentiment. Robert Geiss / dpa / Corbis

As if the euro does not have enough problems, politicians in Europe are fanning the flames of the crisis with broadsides of aggressive rhetoric.

It serves only to heighten resentment, prejudice and suspicion just when the continent needs to pull together.

If the rabble rousers are to be believed, the Greeks are hopelessly lazy, the Italians can not be trusted, the Germans are control freaks bent on taking over the continent and the European Union autocrats in Brussels want to abolish democracy and create a Soviet-style EU.

Greece-bashing is a sport among German politicians trying to score points ahead of elections next year. Markus Söder, the finance minister of Bavaria, on Sunday labelled the Greeks "mummy's boys" and said they should quit the euro by the end of the year.

"At some point everybody's got to move out of mum's house and the Greeks have reached that point now," he said. "An example must be made of Athens that this euro zone can show teeth. The Germans can't go on being the paymaster for Greece."

There's more. "In this situation you have to apply the old mountain-climbing rule. If someone's hanging on your rope and is about to tear you into the abyss with them, you have to cut the rope," added Mr Söder. "We're at that stage now. If we don't cut the rescue rope that Greece is hanging on to, Germany may get into danger itself."

Such derisory comments are picked up by the media and transported across Europe, causing offence among people who are suffering from crippling and humiliating austerity measures and who have developed a finely honed sense of what is being said about them in other countries.

The response? Constant headlines and photo montages in Greek and Italian newspapers portraying Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, in a Nazi uniform. That in turn is unlikely to make German taxpayers any keener to foot the bill for further European bailouts.

Last week the Italian newspaper Il Giornale ran a story about Mrs Merkel's euro policy under the headline "Fourth Reich" with a photo of her holding up her right arm. Il Giornale happens to belong to Silvio Berlusconi, who wants to win a fifth term as the Italian prime minister next year and has been urging the Bank of Italy to ignore instructions from the EU and print more euros to tackle its financial problems.

He has enough experience of basic economics to know that can not work. But such suggestions should play well with many Italians fed up with budget cuts and European demands for more reforms.

Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, the right-wing populist Geert Wilders said the Dutch government had capitulated to the "Italian and Spanish mafia" at the EU summit in June.

Mummy's boys, Nazis, mafia. Cheap stereotypes are being flung to and fro for short-term political gain.

They are poisoning the European debate and making it harder for Europe's leaders to make the tough compromises necessary in coming months if the euro is to survive.

The Italian prime minister Mario Monti has warned of "a front line between north and south, there are mutual prejudices … and we need to fight it".

Guido Westerwelle, Germany's foreign minister, said: "We've got to take care that we don't talk Europe to death."

The currency was designed to put a stop to the distrust and the nationalism that led to so many wars. It was meant to weld Europe together, to lead it on a path towards ever greater political integration and everlasting peace. This grand project was driven forward by a generation of leaders who had seen the Second World War. But they failed to equip the currency with a binding mechanism for common fiscal discipline.

Europe's leaders face the twin tasks of correcting that flaw and keeping the euro zone intact through the debt crisis.

Cheap, insulting rhetoric is making their job even harder because the supposedly slovenly southerners and know-it-all northerners are going to have to share a lot more pain if they want to rescue their currency and secure a prosperous future.

Germany, as Europe's largest economy, will have to assume even greater liability for the debts of its neighbours and troubled nations will have to put up with years of stagnation, cuts and unemployment.

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