While all eyes were focused on the US presidential race, Europe has been busy cooking up another fudge over Greece. Now in its sixth year of recession, with spiralling joblessness and an administrative system close to collapse, this is a country in a truly desperate state.
Despite their troubles, or perhaps because of them, the Greeks still cling to the euro as a last vestige of modernity and European solidarity. About the only thing they can agree on is that they don’t want to leave Europe’s monetary union, even though it can reasonably be seen as the root cause of so many of their woes. A currency that seems to offer only boom and bust in equal magnitude is bizarrely viewed as the one hope of resolving Greece’s myriad problems.
For the time being, Europe seems willing to indulge Greek fantasies.
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