When love turns to contempt

As Malcolm Gladwell pointed out, when opinion changes it changes fast. And when it comes to the EU it apperas that the Germans have indeed tipped.

AFP are reporting that an Ipsos poll released this morning has some very scary reading if you are either a member of the German political elite, or a member ofthe Eurocracy.

A majority of Germans wants to scrap the euro and bring back the old currency, the deutschemark, according to a new poll published on Tuesday.
The Ipsos survey showed 51 per cent of people in Europe's top economy wanted their beloved deutschemark back, with 30 per cent wanting to keep the euro. The remainder was undecided.

What is even more interesting is the opinion of the under 29's,

Older Germans were keener to return to the deutschemark, with 56 per cent of those over 50 years old saying they wanted the old money back in their pockets. In contrast, only 42 per cent of those between 16 and 29 shared this view.

One might say that that is encouraging for the pro-Euros amongst us, but I don't think so. We are not yet privy to what percentage of that age group wants to stay in the Euro, but factoring in for don't knows I would surmise that it is still a significant majority.

And it must be remembered that the Euro was introduced into circulation on 1 January 2002, that is eight whole years ago, so that almost everybody in that tranche of the population can hardly remember the DM, let alone have a residual affection for it.

Of course one should look at previous polls as to sentiment ante, and AFP have been helpful by flagging up a February Eurobarometer poll,

The latest Eurobarometer poll published by the European Union in February 2010, before the Greek debt crisis, showed 66 per cent of Germans were in favour of the euro, with only 29 per cent against.

Now Eurobarometer is notoriously pro-EU in its findings, but that is still a massive swing. And yes we have to factor in the extreme circumstances of the Greek bailout, and the general financial crisis. But the point is that the crisis is not going away any time soon, and the German economy is going to be held hostage by the failings of the PIGs for a long while yet.

It seems that at last the German population has woken up and smelt the retsina.

Update
Lord Pearson comments on the story