25 may 2012, greece on grease

Few stories have dominated the news like greece has (I'm at 2:45 and later) for now so many weeks and months; quite remarkable for a small country of just 11 million people, although disproving the truism that all publicity is good publicity. There remains such a wide variation of possible outcomes that no-one at all knows what will happen and that level of uncertainty totally undermines confidence not just in greece but in growth in europe, to such a degree that we might not even make it through to the june elections. In an ironic way this is something of a success, in showing how deeply interconnected the eu has become, and especially the euro, which now is really the heart and soul of the project. It it is difficult to imagine the one existing in its current form without the other. It is a sign that greeks have begun to realise this that support for keeping the euro has actually gone up over these weeks (to 80%) even as support for the anti austerity party also rises. And people have begun to draw out their euros and stick them under the mattress. Solutions such as eurobonds are part of a proper fiscal co-ordination package (8 may 2010), and even the fiscal compact, seem slow and irrelevant, but in fact it's the architecture that's wrong (monetary without economic union) and so at least agreeing on that, and then showing some determination to fix it with a realistic plan that may get support and be implementable, is a key part of the solution, a foundation on which confidence can be built, followed by stability and then growth. Fresh with a renewed term as poresident, van rompuy is the latest to have another try at that, hopefully before the jokes start about humpty rumpty (21 november 2009). For all that the higher ups do or don't though, this is going to be decided by voters - in ireland next week, and in greece a fortnight later.