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Kohl confesses to euro’s undemocratic beginnings
EU Observer ^ | 08.04.13 @ 21:56 (April 8) | Valentina Pop

Posted on 04/08/2013 10:54:44 PM PDT by Olog-hai

Former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl—the architect of German reunification—admitted he would never have won a referendum on the adoption of the euro in his country and said he acted “like a dictator” to see the common currency introduced. …

Germany’s chancellor between 1982 and 1998, Kohl said it took him “years” to build the trust and negotiation skills to convince other European leaders of his ideas and push them through. … In addition, the freshly reunified East Germans, happy to finally have their Deutsche Mark back, would never have voted in favor of abandoning it again for a new European currency. …

“I wanted to bring the euro, because to me, it meant the irreversibility of European development… for me, the euro was a synonym for Europe going further,” Kohl said.

But he admitted that in bringing this idea to life, he “was like a dictator.” …

(Excerpt) Read more at euobserver.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Germany; Government; News/Current Events; Russia; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: christiandemocrats; eu; eurobanking; eurocurrency; europeanunion; eussr; germany; helmutkohl; kohl; russia; unitedkingdom

1 posted on 04/08/2013 10:54:45 PM PDT by Olog-hai
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