BERLIN — “How about never — is never good for you?”

That classic putdown captures the reality of Germany’s response to repeated pleas from Mediterranean countries in recent days for the issuance of “corona bonds” (joint debt backed by all eurozone countries) to help them battle the effects of the pandemic.

And by the sounds of it, never means never.

“Eurobonds are neither effective nor justified,” Bavarian premier Markus Söder, the leader of the sister party of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, said on Wednesday in a video interview. “One shouldn't forget that we — Germany — also have to take on new debt. Eurobonds would lead to a dramatic deterioration of our own debt situation and constrain our ability to act.”

In fact, in the view of most economists, Germany has more than enough room to maneuver. Its debt-to-GDP ratio, a key yardstick of a country’s financial health, fell below 60 percent last year. By comparison, in the U.S. the ratio was 107 percent and in Italy 135 percent, near its all-time high. In other words, Berlin could comfortably borrow vast sums to help the rest of Europe without endangering its creditworthiness.

Fortunately for the Germans, they’ve been able to let the Dutch play the bad cop in the debt debate, a role the Netherlands has been more than happy to take on.

Even so, few Germans see things that way, as their political leaders have been railing against the idea of eurobonds for a long time, and vociferously. Nearly 65 percent of Germans are opposed to the idea, according to a poll published in late March. Opposition is even stronger among German conservatives.

That’s why Merkel and Olaf Scholz, Germany’s finance minister, haven’t budged on substance in the corona bond debate, even as they’ve softened their rhetoric toward Europe in recent days (“It’s in Germany’s interest that Europe emerge from this test stronger,” Merkel said on Monday).

Fortunately for the Germans, they’ve been able to let the Dutch play the bad cop in the debt debate, a role the Netherlands, which has its own strong aversion to debt mutualization, has been more than happy to take on.

Despite all the noise about Dutch intransigence, Germany is the lynchpin. If Berlin were to decide to embrace the corona bond idea, it would be all but impossible for smaller neighboring states such as the Netherlands or Austria to maintain their opposition.

There’s broad consensus from Vienna to Berlin to Helsinki that corona bonds are a no-go. The northerners worry (with some justification) that once the taboo is broken, eurobonds would be here to stay.

As Southern European countries struggle to cope with the crisis, the only real question is what the Germans and their parsimonious allies are willing to do to help.

Going by this week’s discussions among eurozone finance ministers in Brussels, the answer would appear to be not much. The talks, which broke down in the small hours of Wednesday, are set to resume on Thursday. Southern Europe shouldn't hold its breath.

After mounting an unprecedented €1 trillion rescue package for Germany, encompassing direct cash injections, loan guarantees and assorted other emergency assistance, Berlin has returned to its miserly ways vis-à-vis the rest of Europe, even as it insists it’s being more generous than ever.

The measures currently under discussion in Brussels for the entire eurozone — a combination of credit lines from the European Stability Mechanism bailout fund, unemployment assistance and reduced-rate corporate loans — equal less than half of what Germany has prescribed for itself. The reason the deal on the table is so attractive to Berlin is simple: it costs Germany relatively little (if no one defaults). The ESM, for example, could rely on its existing lending capacity to extend whatever credit countries apply for.

The risk with Germany's promise-much-and-pay-little strategy is twofold. To begin, Berlin’s resistance is likely to further fan both anti-German and anti-EU sentiment in Southern Europe. Italian right-wing populist leader Matteo Salvini is already calling for his country to rethink its EU membership once the crisis passes.

The more immediate danger is that Berlin’s refusal to pony up now will end up costing Germans more later. That’s what happened during the Greek crisis. At the outset in 2010, Germany insisted on punishing terms that Greece could not realistically meet. As a result, Greece’s rescue lasted longer and was vastly more expensive than would have been the case if Germany had been more generous at the outset.

Though the harsh terms imposed on Greece went down well in Germany, where most people felt the Greeks only had themselves to blame, the resentment in Greece over what many perceived to be a diktat out of Berlin lingers to this day.

Throughout the Greek crisis, Merkel and other German leaders insisted they were exhibiting maximum solidarity. That same dynamic is at play now. The measures on the table in Brussels represent a “thick rope” to pull Europe out of the crisis, Söder said Monday.

In fact, the sums currently under discussion are unlikely to be anywhere near enough.

Italy alone will need financial assistance in the scale of €200-€250 billion to stay afloat, said Gabriel Felbermayr, president of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. But the ESM loans under discussion in Brussels would only total €200 billion for all eurozone countries combined.

In order for the fund to lend more, German and the other euro members would likely have to increase the fund’s capital base, triggering another contentious debate in Berlin. But waiting to do so until Italy and Spain’s economic position deteriorates further is bound to increase the cost of rescuing them and could even make doing so impossible. In contrast to Greece, one of Europe's smallest economies, Italy and Spain are the bloc's third- and fourth-largest respectively.

That's why so much is at stake for Germany, a reality not lost on its political class. "It's important to look at how intertwined our economies are and what happens when the free flow of trade isn't guaranteed," Merkel said, adding that Germany would only prosper if Europe prospered.

The problem is that Germany's leaders, including Merkel, have done far too little over the years to act on that maxim.

Proponents of corona bonds, which would lower borrowing costs for many eurozone countries because they would be guaranteed by all members, argue that they would give capitals much more flexibility than the EU's existing mechanisms.

Felbermayr has been one of the most senior German economists speaking out in favor of corona bonds. He warned that lending the required billions instead via the ESM and the European Investment Bank — the approach preferred by Berlin — would likely result in Italian debt increasing from 135-160 percent of the country’s economic output, which would make it more difficult for Rome to stem its debt burden and build up resistance to future economic crises.

For high-debt countries like Italy, the beauty of corona bonds is that they wouldn’t land on the national books.

“A transfer of debt risk via bonds would help to avoid a scenario where Italy remains stuck in a debt crisis for many years to come,” Felbermayr said.

Given the political realities in Germany, however, that fate will be difficult for Italy to escape.

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