Washington Post
May 11, 2010
Sunday was "Europe Day" -- the 60th anniversary of the memorable 1950 "Schuman Declaration," in which a French foreign minister proposed consolidating Europe's coal and steel industries, setting the war-ravaged continent on the path to becoming what is now the European Union. But this year's Europe Day was almost a very unhappy occasion. As the weekend began, financial markets seemed unimpressed by the aid package the European Union and the International Monetary Fund had cobbled together for debt-strapped Greece. Monday threatened to bring an acceleration in the speculative attack on the euro, with potentially dire consequences for the global economy.
Fortunately, E.U. political leaders acted decisively to head off such a disaster, announcing about $1 trillion worth of financial backing for troubled debtor governments such as Spain and Portugal. Markets responded with a cheer; for now, at least, there will not be another Great Panic. Credit for this expensive but necessary step goes not only to IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who stopped dithering and confronted the short-term menace in something like its full dimension, but also to President Obama and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke. They nudged and assisted their European colleagues to prevent a meltdown that might have damaged the fledgling U.S. recovery as well.
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