What Germany really thinks about Ireland

If Dublin successfully avoids using the European Union’s rescue fund to resolve its banking and fiscal problems, it will probably win friends in Berlin. Germany’s exact view on what Ireland should do is murky, but officials are adamant that Berlin has not pressed for outside intervention.

That makes sense. For Angela Merkel, chancellor, and Wolfgang Schäuble, finance minister, an EU bail-out for Ireland would undoubtedly mean more unwelcome headlines in Bild of the sort the mass-market newspaper ran earlier this year over profligate Greeks and how German taxpayers were paying for the excesses of other eurozone countries.

But the view in Frankfurt is different.