Greek Vote Obscures Europe’s Unsavory Choices: View
The Greek government is poised to push through Parliament an austerity package needed to avert a default on billions of euros in government debt. Success, though, will only postpone an unsavory choice that the euro area’s leaders will face sooner or later: Let Greece go and put both the European experiment and the global economy at risk, or forge a deeper union in the face of opposition from their voters.
The Greek crisis has become a defining moment in a project that traces back to the 1950s, when a small group of politicians started what would eventually be known as the European Union. Their aim was to form such strong political and economic ties that the horrors of World War II could never happen again.