We're well and truly in uncharted territory now. Policy makers, economists and the commentariate are in complete disarray, headless chickens are running around all over Europe as a multitude of unstoppable objects are about to collide head on into immovable objects. Europe is braced for a crucial 48 hours of high-stakes summitry likely to decide whether Germany and France can strike a grand bargain aimed at dispelling growing pessimism over the chances of the single currency surviving in its current form. While eurozone finance ministers are to meet on Monday in Brussels, apparently at a loss over how to respond to political paralysis in Greece and a worsening crisis in Spain, all eyes are on François Hollande, the new French leader, who is to go to Berlin for his first face-to-face meeting with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, as soon as he is sworn in as president on Tuesday.
Hollande, Europe's new champion of growth policies, lines up against Merkel, the dominant cheerleader of austerity as the solution to the crisis. The German leader, increasingly isolated if inherently strong in the European contest, suffered a big setback on Sunday night, with her Christian Democrats slumping to a crushing defeat in an election in the big German state of North-Rhine Westphalia, according to German TV exit polls. The truth is the crisis is now so complex and the competing pressures of political and economic strains so great that no one has a fucking idea whats going to happen and what ways this is going to turn let alone how to get out of it. Whats really clear though, as with all situations where unstoppable objects impact immovable ones, there's going to be one hell of an explosion. Nothing will happen other than a slightly less austere austerity. The Euro was formed for France and Germany, perhaps the Netherlands and the northern European states - the southern states who rely as much on tourism as anything else for hard currency were always going to be a problem. Tax the banker trades, tax the rich more, re-distribute wealth, shut down tax havens and lessen austerity - that would instantly see growth return to northern Europe. The majority austerity to pay for minority greed-istas of Cameron, Clegg, Osborne are the hopeless ones, stuck in a world where minority greed rules, the rich get tax cuts and increase their wealth at the expense of the majority losing jobs and having their pay frozen.
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Financial markets are hastily making preparations for a Greek exit from the euro after a day of political and economic turmoil ended with Europe's policy elite admitting for the first time that it may prove impossible to keep the single currency intact.
With attempts in Athens to form a government after last week's election looking increasingly doomed, European leaders abandoned their taboo on talking about the possibility that Greece might have to leave the euro.
Shares, oil, and the euro were all sold heavily on Monday in anticipation that anti-austerity parties would garner support in a second Greek election likely to be held next month, bringing the row between Greece and its European creditors to a climax.
Critical talks are scheduled to continue in Athens between all party leaders, although President Karolos Papoulias's decision to prolong the negotiations came despite widespread signs the talks were heading towards collapse. He has until Thursday, when the Greek parliament reconvenes, to broker a deal.
The European Commission said: "We want Greece to stay in the euro." But it emphasised that Athens could only accomplish that by living up to the terms of the bailout bargain with the eurozone.
Markets are braced for figures due out on Tuesday to show that the eurozone is officially in a double dip recession, and fear that the events of the past few days will intensify the slump.
On Monday investors were seeking out safe havens, including German bonds and the pound, as they sold eurozone assets. The boss of PKO Bank Polski predicted that Europe was hurtling towards its Lehman moment, with Portugal, Spain, and Italy being dragged into the slipstream of a Greek exit.
Europe can “only hope” for political agreement in Athens as European stock markets tumbled and the euro fell to its lowest level against the pound for three and a half years.
Highlighting the threat facing the eurozone, credit rating agency Moody’s last night downgraded its view of 26 Italian banks which are heavily exposed to government bonds.
While politicians wrangled, traders fretted over whether Greece would default on a €430m (£344m) bond due tomorrow – the first real test of its resolve over its financial commitments.
Alexis Tsipras, leader of Greece’s second biggest political party Syriza, said: “There’s a bond to pay back tomorrow and the government doesn’t know if they’ll pay it or not.”
The bond is a rump of old Greek sovereign debt that is held by hedge funds that refused to participate in €250bn of restructuring in March.
Jean-Claude Juncker, the chair of the group of finance ministers, insisted
that “absolutely no one mentioned Greek exit from the euro”.
If ever proof was needed just how effin deluded these utterly repugnant slimy devious basta*ds are, its all contained in that statement.
WTF is wrong with these clowns. Are they that seriously mentally impaired that they can sit there for FIVE effing hours, whilst Europe is crashing and burning, and not even once mention the effiin totally obvious , the one thing every other person on the planet can see is coming like an express train on speed and the driver thinks he can stop in less than 10 foot before he hits the buffers at the end of the line.
And these, words actually fail me at this point, these incredibly blind stupid arrogant brain dead pieces of sh*t, have their heads stuck so far up thier own effin assh*oles, they didn't even bother to to mention once , let alone consider it in every detail, from every angle, with expert opinion, with the greatest level of gravity, that such an event could cause, not even waste a seconds thought on how the utter carnage they have wrought with thier effin PONZI scam is going to now affect hundreds of millions more lives.
It wasn't worth troubling their tiny brains.
And these are the stupid basta*ds in charge.
Is it any wonder that Europe is doomed with these pathetic lame brained deluded half witted scumbags trying to run the show.
Absolutely no one even mentioned it.
And absolutely every single one one of them should be locked up and the effin keys thrown away.
Get these effin idiots out now.
The euro is a Franco German construct. Germany got the low interest rates to benefit its economy and France got CAP. The only sensible action for Greeks now is to go for a managed exit of the euro.
75pc of Germany's exports go to the EU single market. Their domestic market is very small. Also the ECB has been stockpiling masses of worthless collateral in return for supplying liquidity to the EU banks. Three trillion euros so far under the stewardship of Draghi. The ECB will collapse if Greece refuses to pay its debts.
But the obdurate Merkel et al would then turn her attention to other countries, like Britain, to keep the dysfunctional edifice alive - that's why Germany has already demanded we pay towards propping up the ECB.
The Greeks would be mad to accept further loans. Every time they accept another loan at least 80pc of it goes to pay off banks; the remainder pays the wages of the public sector including the politicians.
Of course in these circumstances Merkel will keep pushing for Greece to borrow more and more money even as she is well aware no amount of austerity would ever be enough to pay it back. Each loan deepens the debt and in fact Greece is at the point now where, even if every worker paid 100pc tax, it will never be able to pay it back.
Only two things can happen now. The EU continues to give Greece money just to keep the establishment functional; a kind of merry-go-round of ever larger amounts of money - the private sector will go to the dogs. Or... Greece simply refuses to accept any more loans pushing them into ever deeper debt and goes back to printing their own money.
The biggest damage would happen in the eurozone banking system. Greece would be back on its feet within eighteen months
The German economy grew by 0.5pc in the first three months of 2012, after contracting 0.2pc in the fourth quarter of last year. A second consecutive negative figure on Tuesday would have put the country officially back into recession.
The latest figures from federal statistics office Destatis smashed analysts's expectations of 0.1pc growth. Compared with the same period the previous year, the economy grew by 1.7pct, Destatis said. The growth was driven both by trade as well as by domestic demand, the statisticians noted.
The news pushed the DAX up 0.7pc on opening, after a heavy fall on Monday.
The growth data will provide a much-needed boost to Chancellor Angela Merkel ahead of eurozone debt crisis talks with French counterpart Francois Hollande on Tuesday.
The new French leader, who beat Nicolas Sarkozy at the polls last week, will be sworn in on Tuesday before flying to Germany for the meeting.
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