New York Times
May 22, 2012
Another international summit has come and gone without any of the coordinated action that is vital if an ailing European economy is to be revived.
Confronted by a crisis whose resolution demands intervention on a par with the crash of 2008, last weekend’s G-8 communiqué was long on words and short on action. There were no concrete measures, least of all a plan to back up public pleas for growth. And, while next month’s G-20 meeting in Mexico could offer a second chance for coordinated action, there is no evidence of any pre-planning for such an initiative.
This failure of yet another international gathering has its origins in a fatal misdiagnosis. From the start, Europe’s leaders have insisted that we face a public debt crisis, that its solution is austerity, and that if that solution is not working it is because we have not had enough austerity.
But Europe’s problem is not simply the one-dimensional problem they describe. Europe also faces a crisis in the fundamentals of its banking sector, and another crisis in the failure of economic growth and competitiveness that affects every country on the Continent with the sole exception of Germany.
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