Thursday, November 10, 2011

The euro crisis: slouching towards Bethlehem

Guardian
Editorial
November 10, 2011


A last wake-up call. The moment of truth. A crucial crossroads. These descriptions of the eurozone meltdown came yesterday from, respectively, the EU's top economic policymaker Olli Rehn, David Cameron, and Greece's new prime minister, Lucas Papademos. But it's fair to say that the air in Europe has been thick with such warnings for months now. Indeed, the European approach to this crisis has been to talk in terms of great drama while acting with self-defeating slowness, or what one might call the fierce urgency of tomorrow.

Yet the European crisis has built this week to a point where even the continent's leaders now acknowledge that unless a big and convincing solution is found within days, the 17-member eurozone will break up. The evidence of that escalation does not lie primarily in the resignations of Greece's George Papandreou or Italy's Silvio Berlusconi, proof though they are that this is a maelstrom that can topple governments. No, it can be traced instead to something seemingly less dramatic: the amount Rome is charged on its loans.

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