Source: theweek.com - Friday, February 13, 2015 Another round of negotiations between Greece and the Eurozone’s powers-that-be broke down on Thursday. That leaves the two sides with little time to negotiate the terms of further aid to Greece, before the current bailout runs out at the end of February. If they can’t come to an accord, Greece may well pack up its bags and ditch the Eurozone. On its face, this is a straightforward story of obtuse, high-handed decision-making by the Germans. With the French, the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission, and the European Central Bank (ECB) in tow, the Germans effectively run the Eurozone’s financial and monetary affairs. When Greece first plunged into crisis in 2010, they chose to bail the country out only on the condition of punishing austerity. Rather than stabilizing Greece, the tax hikes and cuts to public spending just drove its economy further into the ditch. But there’s also a deeper structural story here, about how the very creation of the Eurozone set it up for exactly this kind of crisis. In a way, the European Union was an attempt to remake the Continent in the image of the United States. But the Europeans didn’t take the change all the way — and in that gap lies the cause of Germany and Greece’s ongoing game of chicken. Think of the countries in the Eurozone as the states in America. Each has its own budget funded by its own taxes. But they all share in the same broader economy, with one single currency thatAll Related
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