



In a recent interview, Angela Merkel made a statement that may be considered the signal for the implementation of the brutal Greek experiment inside Germany itself:





I am concerned with trying to provide jobs for as many people as possible. We have improved in the last years and have managed to halve unemployment since 2006, but we have also made sure that minimum earning capacity has improved through the minimum wage. This means that people who work the full day should not be reliant on welfare.





Economist Heiner Flassbeck explained to Sharmini Peries and The Real News how much the German chancellor and her party is devoted to the 'ideology' of lowering wages in the name of job creation.





As he said:





What Angela Merkel says is an ideology. It's an ideology of her party, but also it's affecting the Social Democrats, that says if you go for a policy that reduces unemployment, this is the best kind of social policy that you can have. Even if people suffer or if wages fall, this is then absolutely necessary and is justified because falling wages do a good thing, produce a good thing, namely more jobs, which is not true.





Unemployment is falling very slowly, but it's falling quite steadily, but it is not, so to say, the immediate result of the reduction of the social contributions to the poorer people or the reduction of the wages. It's mainly the result of Germany's huge export surplus, which cannot be copied by other countries.





Germany has now a very low minimum wage. It's eight euros and a little bit, which is much too low given the productivity of Germany. If Madam Merkel would really be realistic and would not have her ideology of low wages producing jobs, she would increase the minimum wage. There would be no problem at all given the very high German productivity.





The Social Democrats and the Green Party were those in the beginning of the century who reduced the social contributions, who said we have to lower the contributions dramatically to make the people search for work and that will reduce unemployment. The Social Democrats have never distanced from their own mistakes and so there is no difference between the Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats on this.



The most probable outcome will be a continuation of the Grand Coalition, so we will go on for the next four years. And the poor people will not change the outcome of the election because they are four or five million people and many of them will not even go to the election, so that will not change anything.









Flassbeck's remarks show that current German leadership actually continues to lower wages, not because this is a policy that helps towards the creation of jobs, but, essentially, because of its ideological devotion to the destructive neoliberalism.





Furthermore, check out again Merkel's last sentence: "This means that people who work the full day should not be reliant on welfare." Actually, Merkel is showing the policy that her party, or coalition, is about to implement in case she will get elected for another term. Next step according to the Greek experiment: the destruction of the welfare state, which has a long tradition in Germany.





As already described , German oligarchs promote another "haircut" of multiple dimensions across Europe. They proceed into a violent cut of salaries and pensions, trying to equalize them in a first phase with those of countries of the former Eastern bloc, and disolving the welfare state. Federalism means however, that the same policies will be applied totally, definately and very soon, also against German citizens and workers.





As Flassbeck rightly pointed out, the Social Democrats in power, or as leaders in a coalition with Cristian Democrats will not make much difference. Both these two parties in Germany, and more or less in Europe, have been occupied completely by the neoliberal doctrine. Their single mission will be to federalize Europe with the Greek experiment as a pattern.



