Eurointelligence:

Bundesbank attacks Schäuble's lack of ambition in consolidating the German budget

In its monthly report, the Bundesbank attacked Wolfgang Schäuble's lack in ambition to get Germany's budget on a sounder footing, Financial Times Deutschland writes. "With the budget 2012 there is a notable renunciation of the decisions to consolidate as of June 2010", the German central bank criticizes. In June 2010 the coalition decided to consolidate the budget by €81bn until 2014 via cuts in expenditure and new taxes. But instead of decreasing the government's net borrowing, Schäuble increases it from €22bn to €24bn this year to €26bn next year. The Bundesbank's report is an embarrassment for Schäuble and Angela Merkel, who spend their time lecturing their euro partners about fiscal rectitude and who praise their own country as the "stability anchor" of the currency union.

You know, because 2 years of austerity commitment haven't damaged the German economy...

To err is of course human. But to mess things up spectacularly, we need an elite — Yanis Varoufakis