European Spring

[3rdRock]

European Spring: Why Our Economies and Politics are in a Mess and How to Put Them Right, by Philippe Legrain

Anyone who has worked in Brussels for an EU institution must have faced at some stage the accusation of living in a bubble, detached from the lives of ordinary Europeans. Yet the Belgian capital has offered a unique viewpoint from which to observe the crisis that engulfed the currency union. The trouble is that finding an insider ready to offer a dispassionate account of the eurozone’s messy response to its financial mayhem is not easy. The worst of the crisis is still too close. Most protagonists remain in the roles they held as the drama unfolded.

As a former adviser to European Commission president José Manuel Barroso from 2011 to 2014, Philippe Legrain is certainly a Brussels in­sider. Yet, after a bitter political split from his boss, he shows no re­straint in speaking out against Brussels’ crisis response, which he calls “generally inept, often misdirected and frequently outright destructive”.

His book is a well-informed and blistering critique of errors made by European policy makers since Greece revealed the extent of its fiscal woes in 2009-10. It is essential reading for those who wonder how an economic powerhouse managed to stumble into a sovereign debt crisis that ended up threatening its very existence.

See: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/60d0d7e6-db9f ... abdc0.html