Merkel spurns Obama’s stimulus plea, keeps cashbox closed as she

Just as the German chancellor vetoed a bailout for eastern Europe on March 1, she is now leading European opposition to US President Barack Obama’s call for a global pump-priming package. She’ll determine the fate of a $6.4 billion infrastructure proposal at an EU summit in Brussels later this week. “It’s Merkel who holds the key to the cashbox, and she doesn’t want to give it up,” says Jean-Dominique Giuliani, chairman of the Robert Schuman Foundation, a research center in Paris.

Merkel’s rejection of more stimulus touched off the first trans-Atlantic clash of the Obama administration and led critics to say she risks deepening the global recession. Even as finance ministers from the Group of 20 nations were meeting in southern England March 14, seeking to paper over differences with a pledge to deliver a “sustained effort” to boost growth, Merkel was 67 km away in London, defending her opposition to further spending.

“Germany really has contributed its share,” said Merkel, 54, as she stood alongside Brown, the U.K. prime minister.

The remarks were her third rebuff in three days to Obama’s March 11 call for “concerted action around the globe to jump- start the economy,” comments echoed by Lawrence Summers, his top economic adviser, and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

It is a reversion to type for Germany,

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