Well, FAZ is centre-right-conservative. They used to be even further right, when "right" was chique mainstream. Since then they got rid of some of the worst loonies.
They printed a social democrat - and the sentence Patrick keeps avoiding is "As a social democrat, I'm for solidarity. But whoever requests it, has to accept the obligations that come with it" (<- sometimes english is too unprecise and needs more words than german .. usually when it's about contract stuff
).
That doesn't sound so bad, does it? Every responsible adult knows that's exactly how things work. You can borrow money from your neighbor or a bank, but you have to return it.
2008 crisis hit all of europe pretty hard as you can see. There's quite a few countries on the overspending side now, even strong ones who're not there yet are struggling to stabilize.
Those who keep overspending and raising debt do so at the expense of those who fulfill the stability pact fully.
And that's not Germany or the Netherlands. That's some of the newer members and countries like Finland.
Blaming Germany or Belgium or the Netherlands or any other country who are actively trying to ensure stability is just silly.
Stabilizing countries: "keep drinking, we won't pick up the tab"
Countries where local politicians are trying to get favorable by spending EU money: "ooooh, look how they threaten us"
