Leonid Bershidsky : The World According to Angela Merkel - Bloomberg View

The World According to Angela Merkel - Bloomberg View

Merkel will probably end up accepting some kind of compromise with Greece, too, to preserve euro area unity.

Germany's approach to crisis management isn't a mystery. It starts off by asserting and defending its conservative, perhaps somewhat outdated values until that policy hits a dead end. Then, it works hard on a compromise solution that departs from these values in small ways but allows for a consensus that discourages radical posturing. The values are important for anchoring expectations in subsequent negotiations. They are not, however, rigid ideological dogmas worth fighting for to the exclusion of common sense.