The European Council on Foreign Relations

The politics of the euro crisis

Date: 1st December 2011  |  Author: Nicholas Walton,

Categories: Reinventing Europe,
Tags: , france, george soros, germany, germany , joschka fischer, euro crisis

Europe's crisis is a crisis of many things - economics, solvency, debt, banking, growth - but fundamentally it is a crisis of politics. That makes it far harder to solve than if it was simply one of balance sheets and cash flows, and that's why we devoted the public session at our recent Council Meeting in Warsaw to a discussion of 'the politics of the euro crisis'. The panel - chaired by Gideon Rachman - was George Soros, Hans Eichel, Marietje Schaake, Loukas Tsoukalis, Steven Heinz and Peter Kellner; there were interventions from the likes of Joschka Fischer; and the setting, as you can see from the photo, was magnificent.

I've now published the entire audio of this fascinating discussion as four podcasts. You can listen to all four chunks here - part one - part two - part three - part four.

And to get you in the mood, here are a few quotes from the discussion - you'll have to listen to see who said what. Enjoy!

"Behind the invisible hand there is the visible hand of politics – and this is a political crisis – the lack of leadership, structural flaws preventing timely response to crisis, and lack of legitimacy."

"The Stalinists and the looney left are now 15%-20% of the Greek population, do not want to compromise in any way with the European Union, capitalists or the world. They somehow assume there is an alternative way that they never care to define."

"The thing about the private world is that it’s difficult to live beyond your means for a long time – you’ve got to make a profit and somebody’s got to lend to you. They take the risk and if you don’t pay them back they have an issue. That logic has somehow escaped the public sector."

"For the first half century of European union there was an implicit project to build a European polity in the sense of public legitimacy… I have to say that I see absolutely no prospect of that now."

"If you are following the polls you will never be a leader."

"You have a very disturbed public opinion in Germany – very eurosceptic but more fearful of returning to the Deutschmark than of more integration."

"Austerity has become like a religion for us in our efforts to get us out of this crisis."

"You can’t continue to live life as it’s been, when the main competitive advantage that much of the west has had is a well educated, productive middle class – when there is now as well educated, as productive a middle class in China and in India, but willing to do it at a much lower price."

"A lot of people thought that taking ideology out would be good for politics, but we can now see that it is also dangerous."

"The EU is a French invention, the Euro is a French invention. But France seems to be moving down the agenda."

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