Dark days.

• Author: Engelen, Klaus C.
• Position: Off the News

The implications of the Brexit vote, the decision of the German Constitutional Court on ECB bond purchases, and the refugee crisis are darkening the outlook for the German nation for generations to come. This is the view of Germany's most influential economist, Hans-Werner Sinn, who in April of this year stepped down from the presidency of the pro-free market think tank that he had headed since 1999.

His new book, The Black June (Der Schwarze Juni), not only analyzes the worsening state of Germany in the European Union, but also puts forward a compact program for a new start in Europe. The key questions that Sinn tries to answer are, Is Europe about to fail? And what has to be done to save Europe?

Part of what Sinn tells us is not new. In 2014, Sinn came out with The Euro Trap: On Bursting Bubbles, Budgets, and Beliefs (Oxford University Press) that Harvard University economist Kenneth Rogoff praised as having "produced perhaps the most important scholarly book on the euro in at least a decade, one that should be read carefully by all sides of the debate. His aim is to provide balanced objective insights, not to offer polemic support or criticism."

In the last two years, the situation of Germany in the European Union has become much more precarious, warns Sinn in his new book. "The southern euro countries have been in a persistent crisis mode for nearly a decade, the ECB has been shuffling...