European Disunion

Only a few weeks ago it seemed like Greece's EU friends would take care of it. That idea fell through, though, and now Germany and France are squabbling over whether to bring the IMF in to deal with the problem. As if things weren't bad enough on the Continent, Portugal's debt was downgraded with exquisite timing.

Germany's reluctance to bankroll a Grecian bailout is pretty understandable. Athens routinely cooked their books when times were good, and the Greek public is throwing fits over cuts to a posh welfare state they couldn't afford to begin with. Add to the Greeks' own bad behavior the fact that Germany is essentially the keystone for all of Europe's economy these days and you can comprehend why Germans might be getting a little frustrated.

These troubles highlight just how weak the EU is as a political institution. EU member states must beg their sister states for help--the equivalent of Florida having to go directly to New York every time it wanted to repair hurricane damage. Despite all the regulations coming out of Brussels, the EU is still more of a confederation than a real union. During the EU elections last year, I kept hearing a weary sort of optimism from Europeans about the future strength of the EU. The Grecian Dilemma (sounds like a Ludlum story about hair dye) casts more cold water on that dream.

German Legal Term of the Day

"Quotenkonsolidierungsverfahren" = pro rata consolidation procedure.

This is a very specific phrase/word having to do with consolidation of interests in banking. (Here's an old report discussing different views on the subject . . . if you're really that interested, the mention of pro-rata is at the very end.) In some ways, like with some of the other words I've shared, it's no different than shoving an entire English phrase into a single word. But in other ways, it sums up the German approach in one ten-syllable shot.

Despite the fact that German attorneys have all these long words, they use American nicknames for corporate take-overs. And they like them because they make it sound cool; poison pill, saturday night special, white night, black night, green mail, squeeze-out, etc. They make long words, we try and sound like gangsters.

Feed the Birds

Went to London for the weekend. Three observations. First, Frankfurt-Hahn Airport is really a bus station with planes.

Second, if the coffee costs only 70p - don't buy it.

Third, when I woke up in the bus on the way back into town yesterday I actually saw the skyline and thought, "nice to be home."

The European Disunion

I haven't written about the recent EU elections yet (which wrapped up on Sunday after four days of voting) because, frankly, nobody was talking about it. There were articles in the papers but they were stuffed by news of the iminent (and now effective) insolvency of Anachron, the Opel deal, and the Air France search. Last week, one of the Frankfurt papers ran a double-spread about the European Parliament but it's tone was almost like a travelogue, a peek into a far-off alien world.