What if “hard-working” Germans switch places with “lazy” Greeks?

What would happen if Germany and Greece switch places and the alleged “hard-working” middle-Europeans rule the so-called “lazy” debt-ridden country and vice versa? A fictional scenario but it would  fun if it would come true. Fun? For whom? Certainly not for the Germans who would have to defend their.

Huffington Post Germany presents a fictional scenario built around the current demands placed on the Greek government and people.

Germany in 2015 is a nation full of self-righteousness. The Greek crisis has produced in the country an unpleasant strain of chauvinism towards other nations, rooted in our belief in our own exemplarity: We work harder. We’re more successful. We’re more frugal.

You could almost believe that inside every German hides a little Edmund Stoiber, who annoyed the rest of the country for 14 years with his Bavarian valedictorian routine.

In keeping with this, television journalist and Stoiber progeny Sigmund Gottlieb asked Sunday night on his show, “What are agreements worth, if they’re constantly being broken?”

He was speaking about the Greeks, with their supposedly lax morals.

But since the creation of the euro, Germany has also broken the Maastricht deficit limits. Germany’s national debt currently runs above 70 percent of the GDP. The limit is 60 percent. The difference amounts to more than a hundred billion euros.

And Germany, along with France, was one of the first countries that as early as the start of the 2000s, took on new debt above the allowed limit of 3 percent of GDP.

Maybe a change of perspective would help Germans understand how many Greeks are currently feeling.

What would happen if the Eurozone leaders realized that the root of the problem is German debt policy and the constant rule-breaking on the part of the Federal Republic — seeing as the biggest European economy needs to have an exemplary character; seeing as nobody can be made to follow the rules if Germany keeps breaking them?

And what would the negotiations look like if the heads of all the other European governments worked together to discipline the Federal Republic?

What would happen if Germany would have to been disciplined in terms of austerity cuts, retirement age, bureaucracy, retail hours especially on Sunday and privatization, first of all of water utilities?

You can read the full scenario is here in HuffPost Germany [in ENG].

PS no spoiled and welfare-addicted German citizen would survive a week under such pressure, IMHO