Business Spectator

Perhaps Gérard Depardieu mainly left France because he refused to believe that high income earners like him should be allowed to keep at least about half their earnings. He probably also wanted to be better governed. Or maybe he just wanted to live in a country that left him a little more air to breathe as a free man.

In the strange economic world of the global financial crisis, the complexity of our problems is enormous and the challenges are manifold: public debt, unsustainable welfare systems, ageing societies – to just name a few. These would be difficult enough to solve in societies in which broad political discussions still happened and involved large parts of the population.

In case you have not noticed it, the euro crisis is over. It must be because EU Commission President José Manuel Barroso, ECB President Mario Draghi and French President François Hollande all said so over the past six months.

Because of all his personal failings, it is unlikely the Italians will give Berlusconi a fourth chance to lead their country. But he will at least trigger a debate on the benefits of Italy’s continued eurozone membership, which may well end up with a divorce.

One of the most oft-quoted sayings in economics is Herbert Stein’s famous dictum that if something cannot go on forever, it will stop. It is so often quoted because it is logically true. It certainly holds for the construction of the eurozone and the design of those policies to rescue it.

The year 2000 was one of great optimism. Appropriately, it was also the beginning of an ambitious project: to launch a new business newspaper for Germany. Meant to be a local version of the distinguished Financial Times, the Financial Times Deutschland first hit newsagents’ shelves on February 21, 2000.

The consequences of Merkel’s mismanagement of the Greek problem will be with the Greeks for years. They will eventually cost the Germans dearly and they have set a bad precedent for Europe’s other crisis countries.

As the European Union is mobilising hundreds of billions of euros to save the continent’s currency, it would be reassuring to know that it can be trusted with money. After last week’s annual report from the European Court of Auditors, there is little reason for such optimism.