The eurozone crisis started in Greece in 2009-10, spread into Ireland and Portugal, and, from there, quickly spread to the larger economies of Spain and Italy. By the autumn of 2011, it threatened the entire global financial system. In Europe's Crisis, Europe's Future, an international group of economic analysts provides an insightful view of the crisis. How did mismanagement of a crisis in a marginal economy spark such a wildfire? After all, Greece is responsible for only 2 per cent of the eurozone's total GDP, yet the crisis in Athens threatened to grow into a worldwide contagion.Individual chapters describe: the onset, evolution, and ramifications of the euro crisis from the perspective of three countries especially hard hit - Greece, Italy, and Spain; the concerns, priorities, and impacts in continental leaders France and Germany; and the effects and lessons in key policy contexts - national and international finance and social policies.A concluding chapter by Kemal Dervis discusses the possibility of a renewed vision for the European Union in the 2020s, one that would accommodate the needs of greater political integration in the eurozone within a larger European Union where some countries, such as the United Kingdom, will keep their national currencies. Contents Introduction: Kemal Dervis and Jacques Mistral (Brookings) Country Perspectives; Greece, by Theodore Pelagidis and Michael Mitsopoulos (Brookings); Spain, by Angel Pascual-Ramsay (Brookings and ESADE Business School); Italy, by Domenico Lombardi (Centre for International Governance Innovation) and Luigi Paganetto (University of Rome); France, by Jacques Mistral5. Germany, by Friedrich Heinemann (Center for European Economic Research) Cross-Cutting Issues6. The Financial Sector, by Douglas Elliott (Brookings); and Social Policies, by Jacques MistralConclusion, by Kemal Dervis.
Kemal Dervis is vice president and director of Global Economy and Development at Brookings. A former head of the UN Development Program and Turkish minister of economic affairs, he is the author of A Better Globalization: Legitimacy, Governance, and Reform and co-editor of The G-20 at Five, forthcoming, 2014.Jacques Mistral is a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings, a senior fellow at the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI), and former economic adviser to the French prime minister. He is the author of several books, most recently Guerre et Paix entre les Monnaies.
Kemal Dervis and Jacques Mistral's edited volume, Europe's Crisis, Europe's Future, is a forward-looking text that does not recount the details of the causes of the financial crisis or the evolution of the Eurozone crisis, but instead seeks to make policy recommendations on what the next steps should be." -Political Studies Review
