Angela Merkel: A Chancellorship Forged in Crisis

Chapter 5

Job (Greece as Euro’s Nemesis)

With the euro area in the midst of the seven most critical days since its creation, Merkel had an appointment in Moscow, the city she knew from her student days. Europe’s wartime past, the fiscal contradictions set aside at the euro’s birth and German domestic politics culminated in one of those weekends that European leaders seem to need to keep the continent from backsliding. It was May 9, 2010, a Sunday that marked the 65th anniversary of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev put on the largest Victory Day parade since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 to mark the occasion. A flyover of 127 aircraft roared overhead, including Tupolevs, Antonovs, and the Mi-26 ...