From the American: The Next and More Serious Phase of the European Crisis

http://www.american.com/archive/2012/april/the-next-and-more-serious-phase-of-the-european-crisis

The Next and More Serious Phase of the European Crisis

By Desmond LachmanMonday, April 23, 2012

Filed under: World Watch, Economic Policy

Two upcoming political events could usher in a new, worse phase of the European debt crisis.

"Against this gloomy economic backdrop for Europe’s third- and fourth-largest economies, the last thing that the European debt crisis now needs is destabilizing political events. Yet that is what is all too likely to occur in both France and Greece within the next few weeks. In France, the Socialist Party’s Francois Hollande is consolidating his commanding lead in the polls against the incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy in an almost certain second round run-off between those two candidates. Meanwhile in Greece, the polls are suggesting that the New Democratic Party and PASOK, which form the current ruling coalition, will be lucky to retain the slenderest of majorities in a newly elected Greek parliament. At the same time, the political parties of the hard Left will garner almost as many votes as their centrist rivals, while the number of political parties represented in the Greek parliament could rise from its present five to nine, as parties on the extreme Right and extreme Left exceed the 3 percent minimum threshold for parliamentary representation."