Who’s Nexit?

Which will be the next eurozone domino to fall? With Greece enjoying a temporary lull in its apparently permanent crisis, we can take a moment to look around its neighborhood at other candidates for trouble. There are several — and the euro’s future looks far from bright.

Greece ran into trouble mainly because it should never have been in the eurozone in the first place. Its governments couldn’t balance their budgets, and its economic cycle was far out of sync with those of the eurozone’s leading lights. When Germany grew, Greece shrank, and vice versa. Using the same monetary policy in both countries made no sense at all.

Quantum Geopolitics

Forecasting the shape the world will take in several years or decades is an audacious undertaking. There are no images to observe or precise data points to anchor us. We can only create a picture, and a fuzzy one at best. This is, after all, our basic human empirical instinct: to draw effortlessly from the vivid imagery of our present world and past experiences while we squint and hesitate before faint, blobby images of the future.

Greek foreign policy: The next ruin?

The economic consequences of Greece leaving the eurozone would be serious for the Greek people and the rest of the EU. The foreign policy implications could be equally bad. Russia policy aside, the Syriza-led coalition has been part of the European mainstream. If a post-Grexit Greece lurched from left-wing populist to right-wing nationalist government, its foreign policy could be an even bigger problem for Europe. 

The EU and Greece have finally agreed on a bail-out deal. But, as Christian Odendahl and John Springford have written recently (‘The Greek bailout deal resolves nothing’, July 13th), its flaws are so serious that it is likely to fail eventually. Before EU leaders steel themselves to expel Greece from the eurozone, they should think about Greece’s geopolitical importance (and not just its flirtation with Russia).