The altercation between Wolfgang Schaeuble and Mario Draghi, the SPIEGEL reported, had almost literary quality. Because he brought the Urkonflikt in the euro debate in a nutshell. Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said that Cyprus was not systemically important, and one can therefore reject the alternative claim. ECB President Draghi said, horrified, only a lawyer could say that. Lawyers, so Draghi was quoted, should be consulted. But if a country is relevant to the system or not, can only judge an economist. What we should perhaps mention: Draghi is an economist. Schäuble is a lawyer.
The conflict between the lawyer and the economist is the intellectual core of the debate on the euro crisis. Of course, creditor countries have different material interests than about the Greeks. But the reason that we in Europe, the euro debate repeatedly slips, one finds in this altercation. The German argument formal legal. And he sits across from an Italian economist who is not interested in contracts with the same enthusiasm. The Economist just seems to be there to win the debate for themselves. According to the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" directs the federal government is at least a little. The government in Berlin, however, denied the report.
The lawyer argued on the basis of contracts, the economist based dynamic effects. Whether a deficit is 3.0 percent, or 3.1 is not important from an economic perspective. If a euro member country is in distress, you intervenes. Legal details to take care you later. If it burns, so a favorite among economists comparison, you will put out the fire and do not reflect on the fire safety regulations.
The German discourse on the crisis is characterized not only legally. He is emphatically anti-economic. I recently heard from a colleague that a senior official boasted to journalists that he was of Thank God no economist. I myself had a similar experience several years ago, in an interview with a former head of the Federal Cartel Office. He told me bluntly that he thinks of antitrust economists anything and that he always kept in his time on a short leash. Influenced by the economic methods of European antitrust authorities he held anything.
If they'd argues, then Draghi would have to exert a little more. So it happened in the battle between the economists and lawyers perhaps your mate in a few moves.