Making the headlines in Europe
These days you can not open a European newspaper, and not listen to any kind of broadcast without hitting the word CRISIS, generally in capital letters.
And yes, the world, particularly EU-rope, is in crisis. To put things in the simplest terms: We have spent more than we have earned and borrowed the difference. We have eaten, drunk and bought things like there is no tomorrow and now, lo and behold, the bills have started to come in.
Yes, they come in fast and furiously—and we can not pay them.
Sweden, I hasten to add, is not among the worst sinners. But, it is a very small country and very dependent on trade with the rest of the world; and first on the list is Europe.
Also, it should be noted that the countries of Europe are, more than ever, glued together and thus dependent on each other.
So crisis conferences begin anew every day, on top of those that ended in failure yesterday.
The most important, still unanswered, question is: What to do with Greece?
The Greeks have been spending billions and billions of drachmas and dollars, more and more of it borrowed (did I hear somebody say stolen?) from other countries. In professional circles it has been known for a long, long time that Greece is a basket case. Yet, the business went on as usual. Until fairly recently. Suddenly people started to talk about Greece's failure to repay. Of course, the experts had known this a pretty long time, but there was money to be made, so the show went on.
It still does.
It does, but more and more people realize this madness will have to stop. There are two possibilities:
1. The European community, led by Germany, bails Greece out.
2. Greece is shown the door out of the EU.
Neither solution is good. In fact, there are no good solutions, particularly since Portugal, Ireland and giants like Italy and Spain are in dire straits. Not as badly as Greece, but badly enough. There simply is not enough money to go around.
Many people, including some so-called experts, have pointed their fingers at Germany and said: "You rich krauts, why don’t you pony up the billions needed. Save Europe, for the sake of …"
The truth is, however, Germany simply is not big enough. Neither is the United States, for that matter. The Greeks and other Europeans will have to meet the crisis themselves, roll up their sleeves and start working.
Will it work?
Well, last time we had a really deep crisis was in the beginning of the 1930s. At that time the world order collapsed and Herr Hitler got to launch the bloodiest war in the history of mankind. This time it will not be as bad as then—war is more or less unthinkable—but bad, bad, bad it will be.
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World Reporter
Ulf Nilson, World reporter since his first assignments to Hungary in 1956. Correspondent and Sweden’s man in America for 20 years, Ulf Nilson is still a regular columnist in Sweden’s daily Expressen, and regular contributor in Nordstjernan. He has authored or co-authored over fifty books. He lives in southern France or at his beloved Värmdö, just 30 minutes north of Stockholm. He
• covered the US, including Vietnam during the war years
• marched in the civil rights marches
• interviewed Martin Luther King
• met presidents Johnson, Nixon, Reagan and George H. W. Bush
• and, as one of Sweden’s most well-known journalists, also met with every politician, industry leader or cultural personality—all the movers and shakers of Sweden through five decades of a proliferate professional life.
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