A Land Without a Rudder - By Joanna Kakissis | Foreign Policy

A Land Without a Rudder - By Joanna Kakissis | Foreign Policy The current Greek situation is indicative of the vision gap between the elite and the people of Europe as to the overall project called European Union. For European leaders since the mid 1980s the European Union and the creation of the eurozone was an attempt at creating a competitive bloc within an emerging global market, while for the people of Europe the post-Cold War unification meant fulfillment of humanistic qualitative aspirations which included political and social rights, labor rights, gender equality, economic equity,  and ecological sustainability. These two divergent visions were compromised in the years following Maastricht through access to cheap money due to lowered interest rates,  increased consumption, and partisan politics that were able to postpone touch decisions through a predatory financial sector. The ability by national political elite to postpone fiscal responsibility by refinancing debt into the future though inventive financial instruments was exposed after 2008. In Greece and soon in Spain and Portugal we are experiencing the complete collapse of the interest articulation structures that has underwritten political and social stability for the last four decades.