Guardian
Editorial
November 7, 2011
The era in which Europe was a synonym for prosperity is coming to an end. Governments who could once tell their electorates that the European Union – although it might be problematic in other ways – brought wealth and jobs, are now having to tell them the opposite. It has become increasingly difficult for them to blame the continent's difficulties on others or to pretend that it will soon emerge from its troubles. The realisation is dawning that the models which sustained national economies and the EU itself need more than tweaking, they need radically recasting in a way that will lead in time to the resumption of the European project as one intended to benefit Europeans, rather than to admonish, discipline or even punish them.
Every country has a station on this cross. The Greeks, torn between self-pity and the awareness that they have tipped the whole union into crisis, now face the grim prospect of forming an administration that will have no story to tell its citizens except that they must suffer for past sins. The Italians are miserably contemplating the price of their years of dalliance with the irresponsible and opportunistic Silvio Berlusconi, a long-running show on which the curtain is likely to crash down any time now. The French, who had aspired to lead in this crisis, yesterday brought in an austerity plan which, although it has already been criticised for lack of substance, was marked by a statement by the prime minister, Francois Fillon, that bankruptcy was "no longer an abstract".
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