Noted French economist Thomas Picketty this week reiterated his proposal for a major European summit to deal with European debt issue, while stressing that such a venue should aim for a significant “haircut” of Europe’s total debt.

Moreover, Picketty sharply criticized Berlin’s handling of the Greek issue.

“We need a summit for the total of European debts, such as the one after WWII,” he was quoted as telling the German weekly Die Zeit.

He said such a debt restructuring would not be exclusive to Greece, but would include other European states as well.
The best-selling author of “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” referred to what he called an “undermining of democracy in Europe, as Germany is doing today, primarily through the promotion of automated mechanisms to restructure debt of member-states, which is a huge mistake,” he emphasized, while charging that Germany, as a country, never paid its foreign debts.
“That’s why it can’t lecture other countries. Europe needs a new democratic institution which will decide over the allowed level of debt for every state. In this way the increase in debt would be avoided.”