As Europe suffers, America stands by

The eurozone crisis may be daily front-page news in Europe, but what about on the other side of the Atlantic? Do Americans gloat over the EU’s misfortunes? There it is the US election on everyone’s mind, and Europe is a faraway place according to Michael Haltzel, Senior Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins University.

“I think it would be a terrible mistake for people in Europe to believe that somehow Americans are getting ‘schadenfreude’ out of that, they are not. I don’t know anybody who believes a strong Europe is anything but in the best interest of the United States for any number of reasons,” he said.

But if the European economy is considered so vital to global financial stability why is it that so few American politicians seem ready to leap to its defence, or step in with concrete measures?

“Both Governor Romney and President Obama, know that the US really has very, very limited influence on the eurozone,” says Haltzel.

“If I could, or if anyone could, tell European leaders exactly how to calibrate stimulus to a certain point and then pivot in order to get the budget balanced, well, then I’ll be on my way to Stockholm and pick up the Nobel Economics Prize. Nobody has the answer.”

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