Angela Merkel

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is not to blame for the austerity policies being imposed elsewhere, the head of the European Commission was quoted on Sunday as saying, in an apparent attempt to mend fences with Berlin.

Throughout Europe's debt crisis, northern European leaders have often said they will not stand for taxpayers having to fork out for other countries' problems, and the notion of "taxpayer-funded bailouts" has taken root.

European unemployment hit a new record on Tuesday and Moody's cut Slovenia's debt rating to junk status as German Chancellor Angela Merkel defended her crisis strategy, pushing for twin goals of fiscal rigour and growth.

An attack by French Socialists on Angela Merkel's drive for belt-tightening coincides with concessions by the German chancellor on austerity, but five months from elections she is loathe to trumpet her flexibility.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday that euro zone members must be prepared to cede control over certain policy domains to European institutions if the bloc is truly to overcome its debt crisis and win back foreign investors.

The political establishment has dismissed Germany's new anti-euro party as a fear-mongering populist aberration that could implode even before a looming federal election.

Bare-breasted women protested against Russian President Vladimir Putin, in Hannover, Germany, during an industrial exhibit he attended with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Putin said he liked it, but a Kremlin spokesman is now calling for the ladies to be punished.

A German politician of Greek descent said he will quit German politics because of the country’s negative attitudes toward his fellow Greeks and the policies Berlin has undertaken with respect to the euro zone economic crisis.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has told a Greek newspaper he believes austerity measures in the crisis-hit country are working, despite growing hardship and high unemployment.

He pulled off one of soccer's greatest historic upsets. Now Otto Rehhagel has been handed a task equally challenging: to make Germany popular again in crisis-hit Greece.