Germany is by far the largest and one of the healthiest nations in the euro zone but billionaire investor George Soros said it shares some of the blame for the region's prolonged crisis.
"We have gone from crisis to crisis. Germany did the minimum that was necessary to preserve the euro but no more! And that is what maintained the crisis conditions which are now four-years old," Soros said at the World Leaders Forum this week.
He sees the underlying problems as twofold: First, Germany is in the driver's seat. It doesn't dictate policy, but effectively no European policy can be proposed without first gaining its approval.
The second problem is that Germany is pushing austerity on debtor nations, and Soros doesn't see forced budget cuts as an effective solution. He argues the situation is actually only going to get worse.
"I am afraid Europe is in an existential crisis," Soros said. "The debtor countries are subordinated to the dictates of the creditor countries and have effectively been relegated to second-class membership. I think this is politically not acceptable."