Bertelsmann Stiftung (ed.)

Stefani Weiss, Isabell Hoffmann

spotlight europe 05/2012: Confronting the Crisis

Format Type
PDF
Date of publication
01/08/2012
Edition
1. edition

Price

Free of charge

Description

Dark clouds are once again piling up over Greece. Its reform process is moving ahead at a very sluggish pace, and there has been another bout of speculation about an imminent “Grexit.” Furthermore, the situation in Spain has taken a turn for the worse. At the end of June Spain was granted loans amounting to €100 billion in order to enable it to prop up its ailing banks, but this has not been enough to defuse the situation. It is becoming increasingly clear that, in spite of its austerity and reform programmes, Italy will not be able to weather the crisis on its own. A safety net amounting to €700 billion is not going to be enough for the EU’s thirdlargest economy. And in any case, it has not as yet come into force. The fact of the matter is that the eurozone is waiting for a ruling by I Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court, which has until the middle of September to decide whether or not the ESM is in compliance with the Basic Law.