Given Chancellor Merkel’s insistence on implementing austerity dominant policies to solve European crisis, you would think that people who are helping her develop such approach would produce articles that would support her position. Not so from Caille Millner, who used to be a fellow at the Konrad-Adenauer Stiftung – a think tank for the Christian Democratic Union, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party.

Here is what she writes:

The European central bank has to decide soon whether it wants to be a European central bank or a German one. In its current form, the European Central Bank is neither European nor a central bank – it refuses to consider quantitative easing, a higher inflation target, backstopping troubled periphery government bonds – basically any measure that might help to combat sky-high unemployment rates in the periphery.

That is not an endorsement of Merkel’s policies. Milner, who is now an editorial writer at San Francisco Chronicle, also does not think that Merkel’s course of action is good for Germany.

Germany’s half-measures abroad will create economic problems at home. Germany has coasted through the crisis on the strength of its competitive, export-driven economy.

…….

Unfortunately, an export-driven country needs neighbors with enough money to buy its products.