Splits in eurozone emerge amid debt crisis

"I don't think it's sustainable in the absence of a much greater degree of political and economic integration," said Simon Tilford, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform, a research institute based in London. … "It's very hard for any economy to flourish in the teeth of fiscal austerity of this magnitude — let alone those that can't devalue," Mr Tilford said. … Mr Tilford, of the Centre for European Reform, is skeptical of that argument. He said Germany would experience "reasonable export-led growth" but not as strong as assumed by the European Commission. It was, he added, too early to assume that domestic demand was taking off in Germany. The result, he said, really could mean two speeds of growth — and rather low ones at that. "It could mean weak economic growth across the eurozone as a whole and economic stagnation and debt deflation in the periphery," he said.