Analysis: Merkel talks tough on bailout to gain at home
                      
        
             By Stephen Brown
                  BERLIN |          Sun Nov 28, 2010 4:59pm EST
         
     
 BERLIN (Reuters) - Angela  Merkel  did not make many friends in Europe in the run-up to the Irish bailout,  but her severity and insistence on private investors sharing the risk  were well pitched to address political concerns in 
Germany.
  Finance Minister Wolfgang  Schaeuble's first reaction to the Irish deal was that it reassures  taxpayers Europe has learnt the lessons of the financial crisis and  "shows the European policy of the German government led by Angela Merkel  is a clever one."
Merkel roiled  currency and bond markets ahead of the Irish rescue package by stressing  the "exceptionally serious" plight of the euro and the need for  investors to face losses in any future sovereign debt crisis in the 
euro zone.
Her  message itself -- including that dealers in government bonds should not  be "the only business in the world economy that involves no risk" --  does strike a chord with many in Europe.
But  the tone and timing of the utterances by the leader of the biggest  economy in Europe -- which emerged from the global downturn in much  better shape than its peers -- has left many European policymakers  asking whose interests she has at heart.
Eurogroup  President Jean-Claude Juncker told one German paper this week he was  worried that the German leadership was "slowly losing sight of the  European public good."
Editorials  in papers across the region have wondered aloud whether Germany's  new-found assertiveness, belatedly matching its economic leadership with  geopolitical clout, was positive or whether Germany would not become  the "executioner" of the euro.
"Are  you people still for Europe?" is a question one German minister of  state, Werner Hoyer at the foreign ministry, says he is frequently asked  in Brussels these days.
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"We  have a communications problem," Hoyer told Der Spiegel magazine, adding  that Berlin needed to "squash any doubts about its enthusiasm for  Europe quickly and decisively."
"At  the moment Merkel is being watched in Europe. People expect a lot from  her but are also unsparing in their critique," said Silvana Koch-Mehrin,  a member of the European parliament for Merkel's center-right  coalition.
The Sueddeutsche  Zeiting newspaper wrote in an editorial that Germany's European partners  appreciated that its economic strength was essential for the survival  of the euro, but still had a tendency to resent its increasingly  outspoken leadership.
"Germany's  strength is at the same time a cause for irritation and for hope," it  wrote, adding that Merkel about the need for "punishment, discipline and  severity" in Europe for a domestic German audience tired of being the  euro's paymaster.
German public support for solidarity with the likes of 
Greece and Ireland is precarious: in an opinion poll for Focus magazine, 48 percent were in favor and 47 percent against.
Dramatic  warnings from Merkel, such as "if the euro fails, then Europe fails,"  clearly serve to remind this doubtful public that Germany has no choice  but to guarantee first the Greek, then the Irish, and who knows what  future eurozone bailouts.
"The euro is more than paper and coins, it is a currency for peace," said Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle on Saturday.
Gerd  Langguth, a political scientist and Merkel biographer, said that more  than worrying about her popularity in Europe, the chancellor's first  concern were potential concerns about euro zone bailouts raised by 
Germany's constitutional court.
It already has a ruling pending on the existing 
euro zone rescue mechanism and a negative decision would block any German participation and plunge the euro zone deeper into crisis.
"Merkel is thinking first of the German constitutional court and secondly of German voters," said Langguth.
He  blames Merkel's loss of the state government in North Rhine-Westphalia  this year on the Greek crisis and sees her tough euro stance on the euro  as a political strategy ahead of half a dozen state elections around  Germany in the next year.
In this challenging political context, Merkel is unlikely to soften her tone on Europe any time soon.
"The  more Europe discusses how stable the euro is or not, the more the euro  can be destabilized," said Langguth. "On the other hand, I think this  discussion cannot be prohibited for Germany, which knows it will end up  paying this crisis money."