<nettime> Europe: from bad to worse

[Felix Stalder <felix@openflows.com>]

It's hard to see how yesterdays development in the Eurozone are
anything than dramatic. One gets the feeling that out a lack of
political leadership (blame the others), an unwillingness to address
the problems at the level where they are (untenable amounts of
debts) and ideology (tying reforms and austerity together) Europe is
unleashing again its own worst nightmares.

If Greece is being pushed into the wilderness outside the Eurozone,
it's likely to create economic and social chaos domestically. While
it might be possible to contain this financially (so at least the
calculus of the austeriterians), I cannot see how a failed state at
the European outer border, in a geopolitically extremely sensitive
zone, in the immediate vicinity of the greatest refugee crisis since
World War II, will not affect the rest of Europe. The refugee crisis
is already on the brink of destroying Europe's soul (as Renzi put it)
and this will give it a big push.

One possible reaction to the failed state of Greece will be the
reintroduction of national border controls, handing a huge boost to
the already strong far-right across Europe. It will vindicate their
entire critique of the EU and their narrow, destructive vision of a
new nationalism.

All of this over a relatively solvable problem. Contrary to other
major problems facing Europe (refugee crisis, Ukraine, climate change)
all the parameters of this one are within the EU and the thing could
be solved by Europe on its own, and, given what's at stake, on the
cheap.

These are the wheels of history turning, and they are going to crush a
lot of people.







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