"Whilst I have a huge amount of sympathy with German taxpayers and German politicians who are reluctant, understandably because Germany is the paymaster of the European Union, to entertain these ideas, I fear that they are unavoidable."

"It is not sustainable to believe that the eurozone can thrive through fiscal discipline alone - it also has to, at some level, include an ability to either share debt or to deal with shocks in one part of the system or the other through fiscal transfers."
I like Clegg. He is clearly a man of great intellect and sophistication - he speaks and understands Dutch. But even a great man can be wrong occasionally.

"In the end... somebody has got to persuade Germany that this is a catastrophe for Britain, Europe and the world and that Germany has got to change course,"

"The problem is, the German people went into the eurozone 10 years ago on the clear promise that they weren't going to bail out Italy and the central bank wasn't going to play this role. Both things have got to change."
The Spiegel had a good article in their latest issue about Italy's entry in the Euro (amongst other things). I'm not sure if it's on their international section as I read the original German article. Kohl initially had great reservations about taking in Italy, but France made it clear that they wouldn't proceed unless Italy was accepted as well. His bargaining position wasn't particulary great as Germany technically wasn't adhering to the deficit/debt criteria at the time. Then, in an uncharacteristic (for Italy) show of determination Prodi brought back Italy's deficit within tolerable levels and thus qualified for entry. After all the relevant decisions had been made however, Prodi was forced to repeal several of his measures to appease his commie allies in the Italian parliament. Kohl however was confident that they'd pull their act together at some indeterminate point in the future.

OTOH, Italy so far has managed to avoid a bailout. Greece, which was admitted under Schroder's tenure as chancelor, well...