Wyzwania i kontrowersje polityczne wokół kryzysu strefy euro na przykładzie Niemiec
Challenges and political controversies concerning the crisis in the Euro zone following the example of Germany

Summary/Abstract: The purpose of the article is to provide a synthetic presentation of the challenges and controversies concerning the crisis in the Euro zone, with a special focus on Germany. The article contains three parts discussing the origin and nature of the Euro zone crisis, the role played by Germany during the successive stages of the crisis, main political controversies concerning the Euro zone and their consequences for Germany. In the author’s opinion the reasons for the crisis which hit the sixteen members of the Euro zone should be traced back to the consequences of the financial and economic crisis of 2007–2009 and the symptoms of excessive indebtedness of some southern countries of the Euro zone, especially Greece, revealed already in 2009. Being politically and economically the strongest state in the European Union, Germany played an important role in the process of supporting and helping Greece in the years of 2009–2010, and together with France in the process of hammering out new mechanisms for stabilizing the situation in the Euro zone in 2010. In the concluding part of the article the author presents very sharp controversies within the German government, political elites, experts and German general public concerning the issue of saving the Euro, pointing at the pluses and minuses of the strategy for rescuing and stabilizing the Euro zone as well as the whole of the European Union, worked out by the groups gathered round Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Sarkozy. The success or failure of the strategies will have an impact on the development of the situation in Germany, in the Euro zone as well as on the role and international position of the EU, including Poland. The analysis has been based on the extensive source materials, publications on the issue and author’s own research.

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