AMBROSE EVANS-PRITCHARD: Merkel warns on spending cuts, fearing Depression era!
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
LONDON, England - September 28, 2009 - The era of cozy consensus in German politics is over. The election victor is arch-Thatcherite Guido Westerwelle, who led his pro-business Free Democrats to their best result ever with acerbic attacks on the welfare state and trade unions - which he called a "plague on our country".
Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats and Bavarian allies survived the vote with a clipped mandate. She will have to give ground to Mr. Westerwelle in the Center-Right coalition as he presses for his great shrinkage of Germany's Leviathan state - tax cuts, spending cuts, subsidy cuts, labor reform, and emasculation of the state Landesbanken - whatever her own preference for playing the consensual role of national "Mutti" (Mum).
"German policies will likely shift towards a pro-growth agenda: this is a significant positive for German equities," said Holger Schmieding from Bank of America.
The shares of energy giants E.ON and RWE jumped 4% on the expected reprieve for Germany's nuclear power plants. Solar companies wilted, punished with their Social Democrat patrons.
LONDON, England - September 28, 2009 - The era of cozy consensus in German politics is over. The election victor is arch-Thatcherite Guido Westerwelle, who led his pro-business Free Democrats to their best result ever with acerbic attacks on the welfare state and trade unions - which he called a "plague on our country".
Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats and Bavarian allies survived the vote with a clipped mandate. She will have to give ground to Mr. Westerwelle in the Center-Right coalition as he presses for his great shrinkage of Germany's Leviathan state - tax cuts, spending cuts, subsidy cuts, labor reform, and emasculation of the state Landesbanken - whatever her own preference for playing the consensual role of national "Mutti" (Mum).
"German policies will likely shift towards a pro-growth agenda: this is a significant positive for German equities," said Holger Schmieding from Bank of America.
The shares of energy giants E.ON and RWE jumped 4% on the expected reprieve for Germany's nuclear power plants. Solar companies wilted, punished with their Social Democrat patrons.
