Germany Has Mighty Big Meinschaft: Estonia Wants It

German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle values Estonia’s aspirations to fulfill the Maastricht criteria and expressed Germany’s political support for Estonia to join the euro area, Postimees Online reports. Prime Minister Andrus Ansip met with Westerwelle recently in Estonia. In a press conference after the meeting Westerwelle said, “Chancellor Merkel asked me to look into Estonia’s application to the Eurozone. So, I had my team conduct a boatload of economic analyses – I have enough Estonian macro economic charts to paper the walls of the Bundestag. But in the end, it is the question of size of the meinschaft, jah? Ours is big and yours is little. You know, the meinschaft of my home in North Rhine-Wesphalia every day spends more on schnitzel und bier at the lunch counter than Estonia’s annual GDP. So we say, what the hell, it makes no difference, let ‘em in. Jah!”