October 24, 2011
Markets want European leaders to find a convincing way to ease the eurozone debt crisis by the middle of the week.
Fixes for the deeper problems that plague the monetary union, however, will remain on their to-do calendars for years to come.
The turmoil over some eurozone governments' excessive debt has exposed flaws in Europe's 13-year-old monetary union that are more complicated than Greece's admittedly disastrous decisions to spend and borrow too much during good times.
In the short run, officials must reduce Greece's crushing debt and cushion banks against the losses they would take on Greek bonds, measures they worked on over the weekend and are hoping to agree on by a second summit Wednesday. They also need to expand the financial firepower of their too-small bailout fund, so it can backstop countries such as Spain and Italy and reassure bond investors they can pay their debts.
When those steps are taken, however, the broader issues that let so much debt pile up will remain -- and take years to solve.
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