June 24, 2011
The European summit in Brussels last night spent surprisingly little time on the issue that is consuming all governments: the debt crisis in Greece and the future of the euro. It took the leaders just 15 minutes to finalise the communiqué (more on this below).
One reason for the brevity is that the summit was supposed to send a message of unity. America has expressed alarm about the cacophony coming from Europe. Herman Van Rompuy, the low-profile man who presides over the summits, had told ambassadors in the run-up to the summit: “I am somebody accused of a lack of visibility. But some of us are speaking out too much.”
Another reason is that the leaders are impotent, for the moment. They do not have any big decisions to take on Greece. Everything now hangs on Greece’s socialist prime minister, George Papandreou, and on whether he can muster the support of his parliament next week for a five-year austerity-and-reform package (it has been slightly tinkered with in recent days). The package is the condition for a second European bail-out. Without it, next month’s tranche of loans will not be paid and Greece will default. So the unusual silence and discipline of the leaders is, more than anything, a sign of fear: they are terrified that Greece, if it sinks, could take the euro with it to the bottom of the wine-dark sea.
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