Keep your fingers crossed

Not all Germans believe in God but they all believe in the Bundersbank.

I was listening to the opinions of three witnesses to a House of Lords Committee about Europe and of course the position of Germany was crucial. The problems arising from the Eurozone debt is landing on the desk of Germany's financial system because there is no common budget to draw down from with a common share of the total debt, shared by all the national governments. 
The idea of a Debt Mutualisation approach, which would straddle independent national governance, is far from the current position.
What is missing is a Collective National Responsibility not only for a country's  independent debt but as a "collective" for the general debt. With the debt goes the reforms that will make the adjustments required to spending norms, norms which differ from country to country depending on the cultural priority of the particular society.
Of course the ECB has powers as a centralised authority for the Euro but has no collective taxation power and no overall budgetary control.

The German position is further constrained by the over-reaching power of the German Constitution. A constitution which was drawn up to protect future Germans from their past, particularly the destabilisation that political decision making can bring. Any changes to National financial arrangements would be vetoed before they got off the ground and the policy makers would be rendered powerless.

Of course it highlights the exposure we have in the UK, where there is no fundamental constitution, instead we place our  faith in the Government we elect, not to go too far from the "historical" process.    Keep your fingers crossed !!