Europe and the euro

In his new work, as well as in the previous one, Tilo Sarracin makes a lot of provocative statements. In particular, he claims that Germany provides financial support to other European countries, primarily Greece, experiencing a complex of guilt for crimes committed during the Third Reich. The author of the book believes that Germany is a hostage to all those states of the euro zone that may need help in the future. Sarraitsin proposes to exclude problem countries from the eurozone, and the rest to give freedom to decide for themselves how to implement a monetary policy. He talks about what forced him to take on writing a book called "Europe does not need euro":

- For a long time I had no clear, unambiguous position regarding the European currency. I was a government official, worked in the structure of the German Ministry of Finance and, in a certain sense, participated in the process of introducing a common monetary unit. On the one hand, I could not help but have a skepticism when I followed some phenomena associated with the euro. At the same time, the very process of introducing the general currency fascinated me, blinded me. In 1996, I wrote the book "Euro: a chance or an adventure?", In which I called himself a careful supporter of the general currency. Until 2007, to be honest, it seemed to me that everything was going excellent.

However, then the attitude of Tilo Sarracin in the European monetary unit changed:

“If the euro crashes, then Europe and Europe will tolerate,” the German Chancellor Angel Merkel loves to repeat this phrase. Such statements create a picture of an impending catastrophe, inspire people with fear. In its content, such statements, in my opinion, are erroneous. At the same time, I consider myself a convinced European, I believe in European integration and argue that the concept of "Europe" should be determined by such categories as "peace", "freedom", "well -being" and "work for everyone who wants to work." Integration processes in Europe help to achieve these goals, but for this it was not necessary to introduce a common currency. In confirmation of this thought, I quote in the book a statement by the head of the unification of the wholesale and foreign trade of Germany Anton Burner, who, based on statistics, claims that German exporters do not need the euro, and the introduction of a strong German brand would not have become a problem for them.

The new book of Sarracin caused many response in the country, but not all representatives of Germany’s business circles share the position of the author ... Nordzucker, whose central office is located in the Nizhneson city of Braunschweig, occupies the second place for sugar production in Europe. This company only won from the introduction of a common European currency. If earlier all its plants were in Germany, now they are also built in Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Poland, Slovakia, Lithuania. The annual turnover is almost 2 billion euros. The opinion on the book "Europe does not need the euro" Chairman of the board of Nordzucker Hartwiga Fuchs :

- Of course, this book has a beautiful name that contributes to good sales. At the same time, its content has little in common with today's economic reality. If we bring our company as an example, then the conduct of accounting in the euro simplified our work, since the risks associated with foreign currencies are completely eliminated. With the introduction of a single European currency, a freight message between individual European countries was also greatly simplified, the economic indicators of our company have also improved significantly, ”said Hartwig Fuchs.

After the release of Tilo Sarrazin’s book, “Europe does not need euro” in German information began to publish statistics indicating the benefits of the introduction of a single European currency. According to the head of the Association of Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Germany, Martin Vansleben, since the introduction of the euro, the volume of intra-European trade has more than doubled.

Read this and other materials on the page of the information program "Freedom Time".