Greece - A Lost Cause
For Greece the coming weeks will be definitive. The country's financial affairs are more distressed than ever and national bankruptcy is a distinct possibility. And Europe's rescue efforts aren't working. What to do? The EU has - so far - given financial support to Greece as a member state. But how much longer will Europe, and the Euro, be able to cope with the strain?
Experts from the troika of the EU, the European Central Bank (the ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (the IMF) know that more bad news will come from Athens in the near future. The Greek government has put a rigid austerity plan into place, but nonetheless is expected to miss its financial targets. That means that Greece won't meet the conditions for a new aid package of over 130 billion Euros. If Greece doesn't get the money, that's the end of the line - it will be hard to ignore the increasingly insistent calls for Greece to exit the Eurozone.
The IMF's experts think that Greece is already too far gone to be salvaged. They say that pouring billions more into the country will only delay insolvency. But Greece's crisis is also a crisis of the Euro. The common currency is under pressure: the Euro is falling and markets are rattled. Meanwhile Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy are trying to take the reins in the European debt crisis. In the future a European fiscal treaty with strict budgetary rules is supposed to keep financial catastrophes like this from happening. But for Greece, such rules come too late.
What do you think: Greece - A Lost Cause?
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Theodore Kouvakas
Theodore Kouvakas - studied art history in Florence and architecture in Venice, and trained to become a journalist. In the 1980s, he wrote for a range of media outlets. Kouvakas covered foreign policy and financial markets for Imerissia SA, a financial and business newspaper. Since 2010, he has served as Berlin correspondent for Real Media SA. His areas of expertise include European financial markets and foreign policy. Kouvakas also has a strong interest in cultural topics.
Quentin Peel
Quentin Peel - he is international affairs editor of the Financial Times. He is also an associate editor, responsible for leader and feature writing. He is working at the FT since 1975. Between 1976 and 1994 he served successively as southern Africa correspondent, Africa editor, European Community correspondent and Brussels bureau chief, Moscow correspondent, and chief correspondent in Germany. On his return to London he became foreign editor. He took up his present position in September 1998. He was born in July 1948 and educated at Queens’ College, Cambridge, where he studied economics, with French and German.
Ulrike Guérot
Ulrike Guérot - After graduating in political science, Ulrike Guérot worked initially as a junior professor in the European Studies faculty of Johns Hopkins University in the United States. Later she became a researcher at the Organisation Notre Europe in Paris and was a staff member of the foreign policy working group of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the German Bundestag. She moved to Berlin to head the Europe research group at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), where her specialties include the European integration process. European institutions, German-French ties and German-American relations. Currently she is focussing on Germany's role in Europe.
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