As Angela Merkel admitted in the summer of 2010, “[O]ther EU members, and the US administration, have urged Germany to spend more to maintain the current economic recovery, and reduce its export surplus.”34 But that was not how Germany saw its role. The crisis, so the prevalent German interpretation went, was a result of excessive debt. What the world needed to guide its recovery was for Germany not to act as an expansionary counterweight but to lead the way in offering a model of austerity.
