Pope Francis may think of Europe as a haggard grandmother, but this eurozone granny has a gambling habit. She used to roll her dice against the bond markets; now her target is electoral politics. It is only a matter of time before an opposition party dedicated to dumping the euro, or to policies anathema to the euro’s current rulers, gains power in a eurozone country.
For Europe is in a race, and politics is running faster than economics. The prevailing eurozone policy of muddle-through-while-slimming down, led by Germany and enforced by the new European Commission, depends on the idea that the economic tortoise will in the end outpace the political hares.
So far it has worked. Incumbents have regularly been turfed out of office in general elections in eurozone countries, but none has yet been replaced by the kind of anti-euro or anti-EU parties we all love to deride as “populist”. But for how long?