Merkel: 'The Euro is too low for Germany, If we still had the (German) D-Mark it would surely have a different value'.

Merkel: 'The Euro is too low for Germany, If we still had the (German) D-Mark it would surely have a different value'. HT: KeeptalkingGreece.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel suggested on Saturday that the euro was too low for Germany but made clear that Berlin had no power to address this “problem” because monetary policy was set by the independent European Central Bank.

Merkel made her remarks at the Munich Security Conference as U.S. Vice President Mike Pence looked on. They seemed aimed at addressing recent criticism from a top trade adviser to President Donald Trump, who has accused Germany of profiting from a “grossly undervalued” euro.

“We have at the moment in the euro zone of course a problem with the value of the euro,” Merkel said in an unusual foray into foreign exchange rate policy.

“The ECB has a monetary policy that is not geared to Germany, rather it is tailored (to countries) from Portugal to Slovenia or Slovakia. If we still had the (German) D-Mark it would surely have a different value than the euro does at the moment. But this is an independent monetary policy over which I have no influence as German chancellor.”


The euro has fallen nearly 25 percent against the dollar over the past three years, touching a 14-year low of $1.034 in January. But it has since risen to roughly $1.061.

In late January, Peter Navarro, the head of Trump’s new National Trade Council, said the euro’s low valuation was giving Germany an edge over the United States and its European Union partners. Read the full story here.

Related:

'What's Up Doc?' - Germany brings back 300 tons of reserve gold from US.

'What's Up Doc?' - Germany brings back 300 tons of reserve gold from US.

'What's Up Doc?' - Germany brings back 300 tons of reserve gold from US.

Germany's central bank has completed an effort to bring home 300 tons of gold stashed in the United States, part of a plan to repatriate gold bars kept abroad during the Cold War.

The Bundesbank said 111 tons of gold were brought back from the Federal Reserve in New York in 2016, the last of 300 tons slated for return. It also repatriated 105 tons from Paris. 

The bank in 2013 launched the transfer to Frankfurt of 300 tons of gold from New York and 374 tons from Paris. It still has another 91 tons to return from Paris.

Once the transfers are completed this year, Frankfurt will hold half of Germany's 3,378 tons of reserve gold, with the rest in New York and London.


IN a relevant article Reuters writes:

Stashed away at the height of the Cold War in safe havens well out of Moscow’s reach, the 3,378-tonne, 120 billion-euro (102 billion-pound) gold stockpile has become a symbol of Germany’s economic ascent and a guardian of its stability.

But with Europe stumbling from crisis to crisis, the German public has grown uneasy about keeping the gold abroad. Some even argue the world’s second biggest bullion reserve may be needed to back a new deutschmark, should the euro zone break up.

Having already moved 583 tonnes of gold out of New York and Paris, the Bundesbank plans to have half its gold in Frankfurt by the end of 2017, years ahead of its 2020 schedule, with the rest split between the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Bank of England.

“We have a lot of discussions about (U.S. President Donald) Trump, regarding implications on monetary policy, macroeconomics, etc., but we trust the central bank of the U.S.,” Bundesbank board member Carl-Ludwig Thiele told a news conference.

“Trump has not triggered a discussion about the storage facility in New York,” he said.

With French Presidential candidate Marie Le Pen and Italy’s 5-Star Movement openly campaigning to pull their nations out of the euro, confidence in the common currency appears to be waning. (full article Reuters) Hmmm......Someone expecting a EU breakup?