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Germany's Schaeuble denies austerity sparked populist backlash

23 May 2014, 16:04 CET
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(BERLIN) - German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble denied in an interview Friday that the rise of eurosceptics expected in weekend elections was due to austerity policies championed by Berlin.

He was asked by The Wall Street Journal whether anticipated gains by populist and anti-EU parties in the European Parliament vote until Sunday would be the price to pay for years of belt-tightening.

"Some will interpret it that way," Schaeuble replied. "I think that's wrong. You can see that our policy to stabilise the eurozone was successful."

On the voter backlash against mainstream parties in many countries, Schaeuble said: "Is it different in any Western democracy? Are the approval ratings in the US triumphal?"

He also rejected that the tough fiscal medicine and economic restructuring Germany promoted were the causes of high unemployment and recession in much of the single currency area, declaring "that is false".

"The long recession is the consequence of a financial crisis whose origin wasn't in the eurozone," he said, adding in a stab at the United States: "Remind me where Lehman Brothers was based."

The 2008 collapse of the US investment bank was the biggest bankruptcy in US history and sparked the global financial crisis from which the world economy is still recovering.

Schaeuble added that "the unemployment that we have in all advanced countries, not just in the eurozone, has to do with the dramatic transformation of labour markets through technology".

"You no longer need the same number of employees to produce goods. You have different needs for skills and qualifications of young people. Through the advance of information and communication technology, you have a globalisation of the supply of labour in ever more sectors."


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