As a result, since the mid-1990s European Banks have continually lowered their estimates of likely losses on their assets and now say their assets are twice as safe as those held by U.S. Banks.

Britain has managed such a switch before, most recently in the mid-1990s, after the pound fell steeply on its expulsion from the European exchange-rate mechanism.

As a result, Germany was no longer perceived as a fixed star in the European firmament, let alone stolidly in mid-Atlantic.