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New anti-euro book by former German banker tops best-sellers

04 June 2012, 19:05 CET
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(BERLIN) - A new book arguing why Europe does not need the euro by a former German central banker whose previous book provoked a racism furore topped a best-seller list Monday less than a fortnight after publication.

Thilo Sarrazin, who resigned from the Bundesbank after the 2010 controversy over his last book, has shot to the number one spot of the news weekly Der Spiegel's non-fiction best-sellers with "Europe Doesn't Need The Euro".

Some 350,000 copies of the 464-page book have so far hit bookstores just as the single currency is struggling to survive the worst crisis since its creation 13 years ago.

It also comes after a recent poll suggested one in two Germans believed the euro was more of a disadvantage for the country, compared to 45 percent who see it more as an advantage.

Sarrazin highlights Greece in the book, saying a recovery is possible but "extremely unlikely", and speaks out against eurobonds, or pooling the debt of eurozone member states to drive down borrowing costs for countries under market pressure.

Eurobonds are backed by France and a large part of Germany's opposition who Sarrazin accuses of a "very German" reflex of thinking, "we will have definitively atoned for the Holocaust and World War II when we have put all our interests and also our money in European hands".

Spiegel's best-seller list is based on figures from more than 450 bookshops in Germany.

In his book, Sarrazin criticises Chancellor Angela Merkel for her often repeated statement that "if the euro fails, Europe fails".

He argues that Europe proved for 60 years that it could live peacefully without the single currency.

Sarrazin's 2010 book, "Germany Does Itself In", said that Europe's top economy was being undermined, overwhelmed and made "more stupid" by poorly educated, fast-breeding, badly integrated and unproductive Muslim immigrants and their offspring.

But a number of Germans came out in support of Sarrazin, saying that Berlin's former finance chief had touched on subjects that were better discussed out in the open than ignored. The book was also a top seller.


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