출처: https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/why-germanys-confidence-is-shattered-and-its-economy-is-kaput-d1d95890
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이 해설은 당일자 세계 주요 매체(일간지, 주간지, 방송)를 통해 전달되는 국제 정치, 경제, 문화 전반에 걸친 문제를 영어로 다룸으로써 시사 어휘와 유용한 시사 표현을 배우게 해주는 동시에 현대인으로서의 국제적인 감각을 갖게 해줄 것입니다. 우리 현실과 밀접한 관련이 있는 내용을 거의 실시간으로 다루므로 흥미롭게 꾸준히 따라가다 보면 자신도 모르게 영어실력(특히 영문독해력, 영어어휘력, 영작문능력)이 늘게 됩니다. 이것은 대학시절 저 자신의 경험을 통해 자신 있게 말씀드릴 수 있습니다. 앞으로 구독자님들의 영어실력이 장족의 발전을 보일 것을 확신합니다. 애청해 주셔서 감사드립니다.
**참고로, 우리말 해석은 가급적 영어의 어순을 따라 진행됩니다. 여기서 해석의 최종목표는 영한 번역훈련이 아니고 영어구사력 향상입니다. 즉, 영문친화적인 해석을 해드립니다. 저는 개인적으로 이런 훌륭한 영어문장들을 꾸준히 암기해서 여러모로 활용하고 있습니다. 대체로 비슷한 문형들이 계속 반복되다 보니 이들을 암기하는 것이 그리 어려운 일은 아닙니다. 가끔씩 시간이 날 때는 그 날 암기한 영문기사를 입으로 중얼중얼하거나 종이에 직접 써보기도 하고 그것을 다시 실제 원문과 대조해 보기도 합니다.
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Why Germany’s Confidence Is Shattered and Its Economy Is Kaput
A decade ago, Germany was the model nation. Its economy hadn’t just withstood the ascendance of China; it was thriving in its wake. Its balanced public finances stood out in a world of huge government debt.
Today, Germany has gone from paragon to pariah. Its economic model is broken, its self-confidence shattered and its political landscape fractured.
Europe’s former growth engine has shrunk for two years in a row, erasing any recovery made since the Covid-19 pandemic. Its manufacturing output is down about 10% over the same period and its companies, squeezed between rising costs and falling exports, are shedding thousands of jobs a month. When voters elect a new parliament on Sunday, the far right is likely to double its seats and a fragmented center could struggle to form a stable government.
Germany was a pioneer in cutting CO2 emissions. It enacted its first ambitious renewable energy law a quarter of a century ago and aims to become greenhouse-gas-neutral by 2045, earlier than most other nations.
Less known is how little success it has had. While emissions were down 60% in 2023 from their 1990 level, according to the government, a sharp drop that year was because of the recession. Today, Germany’s CO2 emissions per capita are above the global and the European Union average, higher than the U.K.’s and France’s and just below China’s, according to Our World in Data. Meanwhile, German households paid the highest electricity prices in the EU in the first half of 2024, according to official EU statistics.
One reason for this mixed record was Chancellor Angela Merkel’s 2011 decision, after the Fukushima nuclear accident, to accelerate a planned phaseout of nuclear energy. It meant Germany needed more fossil fuel, including coal and Russian natural gas, as it ramped up renewables.
The U.S. and European allies warned Germany it was too dependent on Russia. Yet Merkel stayed put in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea. So did her successor Olaf Scholz when Moscow invaded the rest of Ukraine and began throttling gas deliveries, driving up prices and forcing Berlin to restart idled coal-fired plants.
After a short extension over the winter months, Germany’s last three nuclear power plants went offline in April 2023, in the middle of an energy crisis that had begun to sink the German economy.
Today, migrants are less likely to be working than Germans and more likely to commit crimes. The federal government alone spends 30 billion euros a year, equivalent to $31.46 billion, on benefits for refugees and asylum seekers—more than half the country’s defense budget.
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