In Europe the public debt crisis is not over and the governments of the Old Continent must not let their guard down. The alarm bell is ringing today on both sides of the ocean, in the words of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and in those of the president of the US Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke.
“Today we cannot say that the crisis is over. We continue to find ourselves in a different phase of this crisis,” he said Merkel during a meeting on industry and work.
For Germany, continued the chancellor, “European politics, especially as regards the euro area, is increasingly a question of internal politics. Germany is not on the wrong track. But given its demographic transformations, given the great challenge represented by a situation of strengthened economic competition, we have to do a lot".
Meanwhile, from the US Chamber, Bernanke he clarified that “the American Central Bank is monitoring the European crisis and is ready to intervene if the problems worsen”.
The Fed is “currently in possession of high-quality sovereign debt – he continued – and US banks have very limited exposure to European debt. There is nothing on the horizon like the meltdown involving AIG in the 2008 financial crisis”.
