EU powerless against deficit offenders

Greece is said to have asked China for a billion-dollar aid package to help solve its economic crisis. The liberal business paper Financial Times Deutschland criticises the Europeans for paving the way for the Chinese Trojan horse: "They've rendered themselves vulnerable because as soon as the wind picked up their monetary union proved unable to weather the storm. ... The European countries want to keep the International Monetary Fund, which can intervene in countries outside the Eurozone, at a distance. They themselves bound their hands with the 'no bailout clause', whereby they may not intervene in the Greek drama. The monetary union needs urgent readjustment. It needs a politically competent, financially well-equipped intervention mechanism that will compel chronic 'deficit sinners' to introduce necessary and painful cutbacks: a sort of European monetary fund. Chronic debtor countries would then know what they're in for, which would give them a greater incentive to tighten their belts."

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