Germany’s economic miracle is nearly over, says Frederick Forsyth

GERMANY'S economic miracle is nearly over

 

 

Economic expert predicted Germany will only deteriorate in the future

I HAVE a contact who specialises in analysis of economic trends. Unlike our Treasury he is usually right. His latest forecast is thought-provoking and at first likely to cause derision. He thinks the economic supremacy of Germany has levelled out and that the future holds only deterioration.

Now it happens I know a bit about Germany. Back in 1952 I was a British schoolboy standing in the Harz Mountains gazing across the Elbe at the brooding mass of East Germany and its 22 divisions of the Soviet Army. They were not there for a suntan. With more than 40,000 battle-tanks, artillery, mechanised infantry and pontoon bridges, they were there waiting for Stalin’s order from Moscow to cross the Elbe and roar into the Central German Plain.

 

That is why I laugh at the idiots who claim the EU has kept the peace in Europe.

That task fell to Nato, founded in 1949. The Common Market was born in 1957 – and it was just six countries. Germany was still disarmed, France obsessed by colonial wars in Indochina and Algeria. Italy, God bless her, was in her usual state of merry chaos. That left the three minnows: Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg which could have held the Soviet tide for about five minutes.

No, it was Nato, the British Army of the Rhine, the Americans and Canadians (never forget what Canada did in the Second World War and afterwards) standing shoulder to shoulder facing east who deterred the Soviet tyrant and his successors. But Germany very shrewdly stole a march.

 

Prime Minister David Cameron advanced the referendum by ten months

With no defence burden she could invest in new factories and machinery. Crushed by defence costs we struggled on with patched up industries, poor management, communist-led trade unions and war debts. Hence the German economic miracle. Now my friend believes it is over. In his scenario Germany is not only the economic master of the EU but also its paymaster. As he sees it, the sheer burden of subsidising the eurozone as it slowly fails will finally break that massive economy.

Germany can either part company with the EU – unheard of – or subsidise it until she herself is broken by those staggering south European debts. The other factor in his forecast is demographic. The Germans are not breeding. Their numbers are falling despite massive immigration, which is causing terrible tensions. We think we have problems with a tide of immigrants.

 

Germany can either part from EU or subsidise it

According to him, we are a garden of peace and love compared with what is coming in Germany. Looking at Germany today, her utter domination of the EU at every level and our inevitable subordination if we stay the servants of Brussels, it is hard to imagine the giant ever toppling.

But the euro, the craziest financial experiment since the 1930s, might just achieve it. I asked for a timeline. He suggested five years. Despite the siren song of the EU luvvies we still have the pound sterling and that might just save us from the worst of the fallout. A last question.

Having promised us a referendum by the end of 2017, why did David Cameron suddenly advance it by 18 months to June 2016? I fear that by the time we find out it may be too late. 

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