Germany

When primary-school teacher Vanessa Kuhn-Baumann opens her pay statement every month, she thinks dark thoughts about Spain and Greece. Despite the prosperity of her country, her bank statements and tax returns feel like a constant reminder of the price of European solidarity and economic unity, The Globe and Mail reported. Like all Germans, Ms. Kuhn-Baumann has a 5.5 per cent “solidarity surcharge” on top of her income tax withdrawn from her paycheques – a fee imposed in 1991 to pay for the reunification of Germany after the communist German Democratic Republic ceased to exist.

As Europe careens deeper into political and economic crisis, the immediate survival of the euro turns more than ever on a single question: Will Germany act? The Wall Street Journal reported. For nearly three years, Chancellor Angela Merkel has resisted pressure from European neighbors to provide a stronger financial backstop for the euro zone. Germany, the only euro-zone nation with the economic heft to do so, has done the minimum necessary to keep vulnerable countries afloat—and demanded crushing public-spending cuts in return.

European Union and French officials squared off against Germany on Monday over how best to help Spain’s ailing banks, drawing lines in the debate over the latest challenge to the euro zone, the International Herald Tribune reported. Olli Rehn, the European commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, and Pierre Moscovici, the French finance minister, offered cautious endorsement at a news conference in Brussels for the idea of letting Europe’s bailout funds inject money directly into troubled banks.

Germany is sending strong signals that it would eventually be willing to lift its objections to ideas such as common euro-zone bonds or mutual support for European banks if other European governments were to agree to transfer further powers to Europe, The Wall Street Journal reported. If embraced, the move would deepen in fundamental ways Europe's political and fiscal union and represent one of the boldest steps taken by the bloc since the euro was launched.

The owner of German department store chain Karstadt, Nicolas Berggruen, is interested in buying insolvent drugstore chain Schlecker, a person close to the U.S.-German investor said on Thursday, Reuters reported. A creditor meeting is scheduled for Friday to decide over Schlecker's future and possibly pick a buyer for what's left of the chain, which has closed 2,000 of its outlets. Daily paper Stuttgarter Nachrichten earlier said Berggruen entered the sales process two weeks ago, bidding between 100 million and 500 million euros ($126-$630 million).

Germany dismissed a French-led call for euro zone governments to issue common bonds, a day before a European Union summit which investors are looking to for new measures to counter the bloc’s debt crisis, the Vancouver Sun reported. After a torrid week, stock markets rallied on optimism that the Wednesday summit would produce measures to foster growth and ward off the threat of contagion should Greece exit the euro.

The head of German carmaker Opel, under pressure from parent General Motors to end losses, refused to promise workers at its plant in Bochum on Monday that their jobs would be safeguarded after 2014, Reuters reported. The plant, located in the rust-belt Ruhr region devastated by coal mine closures, is expected to shut after the company chose to build the next generation of its popular Astra compact in Britain and Poland where wages are cheaper.

Private equity investor Cerberus has agreed to acquire roughly 22,000 German flats from insolvent Speymill Deutsche Immobilien (SDIC), Reuters reported. As part of the deal, Cerberus is restructuring 985 million euros ($1.25 billion) in SDIC's debt and will inject an undisclosed sum of fresh capital, the administrator and the private equity investor said in a joint statement on Wednesday.

German solar-power company Sovello GmbH filed for insolvency and will attempt to restructure in the process, Bloomberg reported. Sovello, based in Bitterfeld-Wolfen, cannot pay its debts and has asked the Dessau insolvency court to be allowed to restructure under its management, the company said in a statement on its website today. Attorney Bernd Depping has been appointed as preliminary administrator, the company said. “We have checked alternative scenarios to regain solvency,” Chief Executive Officer Reiner Beutel said in the statement.

Germany is facing a unique dilemma as many euro-zone counterparts debate how much fiscal belt-tightening their citizens can withstand to restore sound public finances: how much inflation it can stomach to help its southern neighbors, The Wall Street Journal reported. On Friday, Germany's central bank rejected speculation that it is softening its anti-inflation rigor, as its leader tried to keep a largely economic debate about restoring growth in Southern Europe from damaging the Bundesbank's cherished reputation in Europe's largest economy.