April 04, 2011

Politics will bedevil resolving the euro crisis

Last week’s widening in sovereign bond spreads and the results of stress tests on Irish banks have reminded us that the eurozone has made hardly any progress in actual crisis resolution – in spite of its pretentious grand bargain. Over the next few weeks, I will try to map out various scenarios of how the crisis might evolve. It is probably the toughest challenge the European Union has confronted in its history. The eventual outcome will depend on a complex interaction of politics, finance and economics.