Het is de uitspraak van een bezorgde Duitser. De schuldencrisis in Europa begint zwaar door te wegen op de gemoederen in Duitsland. Met name het Griekse drama is men beu. Bloomberg ving de volgende geluiden op van de ‘man in de straat’ en de lokale politici in Hassloch, Duitsland.

“It would be better if Greece left the euro,” Ihlenfeld, 49, a member of Merkel’s CDU party, said in an interview in the town hall across from an 18th-century church topped with a golden weathervane. “Their structures are too dilapidated and their public administration is too corrupt.” “Greece’s economy is only a tiny part of the euro area,” Cristina Amarghioalie, 28, an employee at the “Sun for Fun” tanning center in Hassloch, said in an interview. “I don’t think Greece leaving would destroy the euro. Greece has been helped enough. Spain and Italy are more important.” Lars Engisch, an 18-year-old 11th grade student, agreed. “The euro won’t break up if Greece leaves,” he said as he delivered newspapers. “We don’t even know what happens to money that already goes to Greece.” Bernd Ruckdeschel, 74, a retired BASF SE employee who now heads Hassloch’s local museum, said Greek “corruption and non- payment of taxes” has caused the crisis. “Germany shouldn’t do anything more for Greece. Merkel is doing the right thing.” “We can’t go on funding the Greeks, they’re beyond help,” Angelika Hoerner, 50, said as she served customers from behind a glass counter of her family’s butcher shop in the town of 21,000 in western Rhineland-Palatinate state. “It’s better to have an end with horror than horror without an end.”

Alhoewel Hassloch een kleine gemeenschap in Duitsland is, is de samenstelling van de lokale bevolking een goede weergave van de Duitse bevolking.

“Hassloch reflects Germany because it’s rural yet close enough to big cities to combine an urban lifestyle,” Julia Peschl, 28, a research consultant at GfK headquarters in Nuremberg, said by telephone. “The per capita purchasing power of its residents is almost exactly the German average.”