Germans vote no more bailouts!
HAMBURG, Germany - February 20, 2011 - As the results of the first of seven German regional elections hits the wire, the German people are heard loud and clear: "no more bailouts."
The outcome of the Hamburg election is nothing short of a disaster for Chancellor Angela Merkel and her ruling (for now) CDU party, which lost control of Hamburg, Germany’s richest state, in the first of seven state votes this year that threaten to limit the Chancellor’s scope to respond to Europe’s debt crisis, according to television projections.
Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union took 20.8% in today’s election, its worst result in the port city since at least World War II, ARD television projections showed.
The Social Democrats, the main national opposition party, took 49.8%, enough to end the CDU’s 10-year rule in Hamburg and form a majority government without need of a coalition partner.
The CDU suffered “a massive collapse of support in this booming city that must set off hand-wringing in Berlin,” said Hans-Juergen Hoffmann, managing director of Hamburg-based pollster Psephos. “Merkel will surely be concerned now that this disaster won’t be repeated in upcoming state elections,” he added.
What has happened in Germany is nothing short of a revolution to the existing status quo. The attempt to cover up European bailouts with endless rhetoric is finished. If Merkel continues on the course she is currently heading, then she is history... and she knows it too well.
It is time to be less than bullish on future prospects for the euro.