The ja and nein of euro rescues

摘要

The two German central bankers, both 40-somethings and friends since university days, pointedly sat next to each other in the courtroom on June 11th. Jens Weid-mann has risen through the office of Chancellor Angela Merkel to become president of the Bundesbank. Jorg Asmussen has moved via the finance ministry to the executive board of the European Central Bank (ecb). But however amicable, they came to the constitutional court in Karlsruhe on opposing sides of the argument.At issue was, once again, the effort to end the euro crisis. In September the court gave a preliminary nod to the European Stability Mechanism, a fund that can lend to struggling euro-zone countries on certain conditions. But out of that judgment grew a possibly more perilous case over the role of the ecb.