Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Austerity Europe: Hahn - Merkel - Schauble - Rehn

Johannes Hahn - Angela Merkel - Wolfgang Schauble - Olli Rehn


In mid-2011, Berlin leapt to blame Spanish farmers for poisonous cucumbers which had actually been grown in Germany. The incident was seen as indicative of the disregard felt by the Germans for the southern Europeans. But Merkel and her gnomic finance minister Schauble are, however, not the only northern Europeans taking a punitive line towards Club-Med. There is Johannes Hahn, the lantern-jawed Austrian Commissioner for regional policy, who is keen to impose strict, moral rules on southerners, forgetting his own past dalliances. And there is Olli Rehn, the Finnish EU Commissioner for Economic Affairs. The Finns have famously turned out to be more German than the Germans.


With apologies to: Desperate Dan; Spanish cucumbersYoda; flightless animals