In These New Times

Gulf press

Berlin: German Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday ruled out a return to the deutschmark amid a debt crisis that has led to calls in some quarters for Europe’s top economy to ditch the euro.

“There will be no return to the D-Mark,” Merkel said in an interview with Stern magazine due to appear yesterday.

She reiterated that Germany was committed to the European currency and “would do everything necessary to guarantee a stable euro”.

Split

Merkel also dismissed the notion of a split in the Eurozone between fiscally prudent northern countries, such as her own, and the debt-stricken south, where Portugal is seen as most at risk after debt bailouts for Greece and Ireland.

“Not with me. For Germany, this is a definite ‘No’. And relations in Europe are not that black and white in any case,” she said.

As the richest country in Europe, Germany is the biggest contributor to a multi-billion-dollar fund designed to help ailing Eurozone nations while polls have shown that rescuing Greece and then Ireland was unpopular.

Merkel also called for “more intensive cooperation” between the 17 countries that share the euro but insisted that this should not be limited only to Eurozone members.