given the bank's parlous state

the Outright Monetary Transactions programme. [...] the ECB would step into the money markets to buy unlimited numbers of Italian and Spanish bonds in order to stabilise their value--and with them the interest rates that the Italian and Spanish governments paid to refinance their public debt.

the Bundesbank waiting in the wings to denounce Mario Draghi as an apostate

Warrants are essentially options to buy more shares at the original low share price.

John Maynard Keynyes, back in 1936, had to quote Ibsen's Wild Duck in order to convey to his reader the problem that a central bank faces when interest rates fall to zero but the economy is still in the doldrums

Having made the transition from Gestapo-organized paramilitary to local gendarmerie

German unification began with a customs union known as the Zollverein, an 1833 agreement between the various territories promoted as a first step towards freer trade and much needed economic integration.

The German philosopher Jürgen Habermas long ago recognized that capitalism has the tendency to develop a 'legitimacy deficit'-- a situation in which citizens, independently of their political beliefs or ideology, lose confidence in the right of political and administrative authorities to act as they do.

a bold measure in principal which is left permanently in abeyance in practice

Heavy industry centres are typified by large, networked, powerful corporations. To cover their overheads these entities must have large outputs and contain their labour costs. This means that local people (mostly wage earners) cannot consume all that the factories are producing. This is why powerhouse economies require a hinterland to generate the necessary demand for their surplus goods. If the exchange rate between the powerhouse economy and the hinterland is fixed, the hinterland will remain in permanent trade deficit