decisive inaction

There will come the day the Germans will get fed up.

These are the people who from the beginning have been bearing by far the largest burden of the EU and they are the ones which need it the least. They do not need a large internal market because they have one of their own. They do not need an European Central Bank because they had the most respected central bank in the World - the Bundesbank. They do not need a protected free economic zone because they can beat everybody in the World at international competitiveness. They do not need the euro because they had a curreny as strong as the euro - the mark. They do not need the EU to secure the stability of their democratic institutions because they have strong ones.

And yet, while they keep footing the bill they never complain about the EU. No destructive word or action ever comes from them. They watch in silence the countries they have contributed to turn rich to do the show. They watch their money sometimes being wasted in grandiose projects abroad, other times simply vanishing in petty corruption. They watch the sheer ingratitude of people in other countries turning down the EU they have generously funded for decades. What would have been made of countries such as Ireland (and Portugal) withou the EU, that is, without German money? I tell you: civil strife, economic decay, no democracy whatsoever.

Looking at all this one gets the impression at times that the Germans are unthinking people. They are not. Actually, they are quite good at that. They have produced the best thinkers of the modern World, regardless of whether you like them or not. They are just watching and thinking. One day, they will get fed up and will move to decisive action, or rather decisive inaction: not one more cent to anybody in Europe.