IMF crosses swords with Germany over crisis handling

The International Monetary Fund has exhorted Germany to stop dragging its feet on eurozone crisis measures, refuting claims that austerity is working and that Europe is on the road to recovery.

 The IMF said Germany’s vast trade surplus must be slashed in half to rectify the eurozone’s North-South imbalances, and warned that fiscal overkill could abort recovery and set off an EMU-wide chain reaction.

“Fiscal over-performance should be firmly avoided,” said the Fund in its annual health check on the country.