Future of the European Union

Future of European Union



Around Europe, 27 nations now fly the flag of the European Union next to their own. Sixteen have ditched the drachmas, marks and other bills that symbolized their sovereignty to embrace a single currency, the euro, lending new power to their economic and trade bloc.

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All that is now being called into question, however, as European leaders struggle to prevent ruinous spending by Greece from spiraling into a wider crisis or even breaking up the euro union. How they handle this problem could either propel Europe to greater economic and political clout in the decades ahead, or downgrade it to a sideshow in a global economic theater directed by China and the United States.

For the moment, things don’t look comforting for the euro. As the troubles in Greece drove the currency ever lower against the dollar last week, Europe’s politicians did what everyone has by now come to expect: they talked about a bailout for Greece, then talked some more about the need to take “coordinated action.”

Yet details of a rescue plan were put off to a future date. No mention was made of how they would prevent Portugal, Spain or other deficit-saddled economies from falling like dominoes. And questions about who would pay for any future blowups were answered with silence.

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