27 october 2011, is it enough ?

So, they (and its with a slight pang of regret it's not "we") finally seem to have come to a solution, or at least to a state that things can settle: greece can "default" in an orderly way, the other countries seen as weak but not insolvent can be left to trade their way out to stability, the banks get a bigger cushion of cash, and the first steps are taken on the long road towards stopping all this ever happening again, through treaty-change towards economic union. By nature I am an optimist, and a deep euro enthusiast, and so maybe I cannot help but be biased. However, yes, I think this is enough. The problems were never going to be solved by a dramatic gesture, but by a process around which there is confidence. It may take an age to get to china walking one step at a time, but if you walk long enough, you get there eventually. So, though confidence may again fizzle out, though the devil of the details may yet risk elements of the package unravelling, I do think that two rubicons have been crossed. First, greece has gone, and second the argument over the way the others will be guaranteed the breathing space they need, namely fiscal or monetary, has been definitively answered. It's the former, and so now all can just get on with it, and if at some point some element needs bolstering, that will happen. A classic distraction has even been thrown in to stop people talking about the deal, getting them to talk instead about whether greece should have been in the euro in the first place instead (correct but irrelevant). This gives confidence a few more precious hours to build in this ludicrous news cycle led mass media world we live in (see 15 august 2011). So there it is, we can breathe a bit easier, think a bit further ahead, and sleep rather better across europe tonight, as pax merkela reigns.