Who is to blame for the eurozone crisis? The governments that ran up the debts? The officials who fudged the criteria so that Italy and Greece could join? The dolts who dreamed up the single currency in the first place? Nope: it’s those wicked Anglo-Saxons again. In Die Welt, the EPP’s Elmar Brok claims that the US has launched an economic war against Europe. For those who can’t read German, here is a rough summary of his argument. The US ratings agencies, he says, had no conceivable reason to downgrade nine eurozone states last week. What this is really about is a political project aimed at advancing ‘Anglo-Saxon interests’ in Europe. Americans have been becoming increasingly anti-European, as Mitt Romney’s campaign shows. (I have no idea either, but that’s what he says.) Then again, it’s not really their fault, since they’ve been fed lies by Anglo-Saxon media moguls for decades. It’s tempting to dismiss Elmar as a buffoon, but he is a senior MEP who, among other things, chairs the EU-US interparliamentary group. More to the point, his views are widely shared.

(Dr. Benny Peiser)