It seems that the opponents of "austerity" in Europe are beginning to coordinate across borders. Spain gets another loan from the central European financiers, pundits say this means victory for Syriza in Greece, Ireland calls and says it wants to renegotiate terms. One of the big issues now is the future of politics inside France and Germany, and in Franco-German relations. It seems Hollande's allies are winning the parliament as well. I am vaguely aware that some of Merkel's opponents have talked of making common cause with Hollande.
Conventional wisdom says that the German public don't want to hand out free money to their insolvent southern neighbors. The situation has appeared to be one in which Germany works hard and makes money, while southern Europe borrowed too much and now doesn't want to pay it back, instead asking for even more money from the productive part of Europe. I don't know how true that is, but it does seem that resistance to one type of EU policy has firmed up since Sarkozy's departure, and so the other side may get a chance to try out their nostrums, whatever those happen to be.
My intuition tells me that we're in a period of political solidification, after a period of fluid crisis in which everyone with power appeared helpless. We had the period in which new governments were appointed in Greece and Italy, but we just had a big change in France produced by election, and probably that will happen in Greece as well. The EU may be approaching an overall regime change - or as much as that can ever occur, in a geopolitical entity which is a loose association of over 20 countries.
Someone at ZH said that as 2008 was for America, 2012 is for Europe. In America, 2008 brought in Obama, but economically there has been no progress. In mid-2012, we still await to learn the form of Europe's new political configuration.
