Three years ago, or maybe a little more, Europe was quiet. It wasn’t exactly overjoyed at the state of things. There were issues. But It was, by the measure of the previous seven years, content. At any rate, whatever problems there were didn’t impinge much on most people’s everyday lives.
The EU was once more purring along. It had more or less sorted itself out after the shock of the 2008 recession, a contagion that, after all, had its origins in America and was by no means confined to the Eurozone. There was still work to be done on shoring up the single currency, the weaknesses of which had been cruelly exposed. Greece – hardest hit by the financial crisis – had a way to go
