PARIS — Europe’s long, halting struggle with deficits and debt can seem like the agonies of Macbeth: “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time.”
The 17 European Union nations that share the euro don’t have that much time, of course, to convince investors that they have a plan to hold the currency together and prevent a run on the Continent’s banks. Some analysts say they have less than five weeks, until the Group of 20 summit meeting in November; others say a bit longer.
But rapid action comes hard to a union that works in increments, with political agreement required at every step.
In the short term, Greece remains the central problem. Two bailouts have not been enough. Greek public debt continues to mount, and so does the pressure on the government to find more revenue and make more cuts. Europe’s strategy, to the extent it can be discerned, is to put off restructuring Greece’s debt as long as possible and build up enough backing for a bailout fund so that banks with large exposure to the sovereign debt of Greece and other troubled euro-zone countries, like Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain, can survive an all-but-inevitable Greek default.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/03/world/europe/greeces-urgency-challenges-european-union-efforts.html?_r=1&ref=world
By: Joseph McGee
No comments:
Post a Comment