Hugh Williamson (Extracted from "German grand coalition plan in turmoil", Financial Times, 1 November 2005)

"Efforts to build Germany's grand coalition government descended into chaos on Tuesday as Edmund Stoiber, Bavarian premier, said he was no longer willing to join the cabinet of Angela Merkel, the chancellor-in-waiting."

[Ed The new coalition in Germany is in trouble before it even starts after the recent election. This, by itself, may not be significant. But France is in deep trouble also with its government facing solid resistance to reform by one third of the country's workers who are themselves employed by the government, not to mention race riots in Paris suburbs and long strikes in Marseilles. Italy is in its increasing state of chaos with a public debt of 150% of its GDP and rising higher. The UK -- hitherto the archangel of the large powers in the European Union -- is now plunging past the critical debt barrier set by the EU. Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Portugal are implacably set against trade liberalisation and will probably wreck the World Trade Organisation before too long. The EU Constitution has been abandoned and the 2006 Annual Budget is still not agreed after months of vituperative negotiation. Although the EU is notionally expanding with ten new members recently (which are after the huge EU agricultural subsidies) it is, in fact, cracking up.]