But the euro crisis has created something different: a strong Germany in a weak euro zone.
Germans insist that PIIGS and other weak euro zone countries pass crippling austerity measures otherwise they will be penalized (and, therefore, further weakened).
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Gains in European markets were limited by a weak Euro zone industrial production report Monday that showed a 0.3% decline from October to November.
In Europe, shares of big manufacturing companies and miners declined on weak euro-zone and U.S. data.
European markets closed broadly lower amid the tumult in Cyprus and weak euro-zone economic data.
And that is without counting the danger of a general contagion in weak euro-zone economies.
Investors dumped the bonds of Ireland and other weak euro-zone countries, accelerating a sell-off that started after the Deauville meeting.
It will not surprise me if people in Greece, Spain and other weak economic Euro Zone countries will start moving Euros to stronger countries such as Germany and the UK. If you see governments start to impose limits on capital movement I would expect those countries interest rates to rise.
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When ECB President Mario Draghi was asked if the central bank would increase its sovereign bond-buying in light of weak auctions across the euro zone, he said no.
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The scheme is designed to protect weak links in the euro zone for the next three years, buying them the breathing space to shore up public finances, clean up banks and retool uncompetitive economies so they can grow again and pay off their debts.
Europe's slide toward deflation is not helped by its weak economic environment: The euro zone jobless rate rose to 9.5% in May, from 9.3% in April, hardly evidence of green shoots.
To be sure, the weak state of the euro-zone economy and the lingering debt crisis in southern Europe may still derail the stock-market recovery, said Jerome Vinerier, a Brussels-based market analyst at IG Markets.
Money-market funds mostly have experienced outflows this year as concerns about the euro-zone debt crisis and a weak economic outlook in the U.S. have weighed on sentiment.
U.S. markets were closed Thursday for the Thanksgiving holiday but European stocks ended on a weak note after leaders of the euro zone's three biggest nations France, Germany and Italy ruled out expanding the European Central Bank's role to help support weaker euro-zone states.
It did this by luring deposits with a favorable tax treatment and what many euro-zone policy makers believe were exceptionally weak anti-money-laundering controls, turning Cyprus into a haven for tainted money, particularly from Russia.
Another alternative is to let peripheral Europe leave the zone and rebuild it with Denmark and Sweden as a kind of "dark winter night" economic zone, based on sound principles and weak beer.
But demand at a sale of 10-year bonds from Germany, the euro zone's safe haven, was surprisingly weak.
Finally, Mr. Sarkozy said he would accept the private-sector involvement if Ms. Merkel dropped her resistance to giving the euro-zone bailout fund broad new powers to buy debt of weak countries directly and move to protect such countries as Spain and Italy from bond-market contagion.
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Greece has not made the case for how it can recover: how its weak economy can earn the money needed to sustain income and benefits at Euro Zone levels while repaying its remaining debts.
Most analysts expect oil prices to be softer in the first quarter as the euro-zone crisis dominates the news and unseasonably warm winter weather keeps oil demand weak.
The receding breakup fear also hit momentum among governments to correct the flaws in the euro zone's makeup, slowing the push to complete a euro-zone "banking union" and to cut the links between governments with weak finances and feeble banks, which was undermining confidence in both.
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