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The euro itself was a leading cause of this crisis by ushering in a remarkably swift convergence in interest rates, which had the effect of directing too much capital into countries that formerly had had to pay high interest rates. This undermined the competitiveness of these countries through inflation and gave rise to huge deficits in their current accounts.

The euro is not suffering from a mere confidence crisis that can be resolved by assuaging the markets; it is experiencing a profound balance‐of‐payment crisis that is being prolonged by the expansion of public financial aid.

Since autumn 2007, long before the official bail‐out initiatives began, some of the crisis‐hit countries have replaced dwindling private capital imports and capital flight with their money‐printing presses (Target credits).

relatively small size,

Most European leaders have nothing against using the central bank's reserves as a source of financing, as became evident at the Cannes summit. Important politicians like European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and French President Sarkozy proposed making IMF "special drawing rights" available

It appears that the euro crisis is approaching its endgame. Many promises made when the common currency was introduced have already been broken. The initial stipulation that only stable countries be allowed in, for example, quickly proved illusory once Italy and Greece were accepted.

German taxpayers were also promised that they would never be held liable for the debts of other countries in the euro zone. But then came the first and second bailout packages for Greece and the European bailout fund.

You should look at it more holistically. We wouldn't have been able to increase our exports if the other countries had behaved like us and had not increased their demand for an entire decade.

Excluding Greece from the union would be the completely wrong approach. Greece's problem is its inefficiency in terms of public finances. That can be corrected.

Starbatty: In my experience, speculators are only successful when political promises diverge from economic reality, as has become clear in Greece.

Mr. Weber, who is also a member of the European Central Bank’s governing council, said that the statistics reflected Ireland’s status as a financial center: much of what is recorded as claims on Ireland is in fact money funneled through Irish subsidiaries of German banks, and ultimately bound for elsewhere, Mr. Weber said. He said total German exposure was closer to $30 billion.

In both cases more than half of the exposure was to Ireland’s private sector, rather than lending to the government or Ireland’s beleaguered banks.

Taxpayers will bear the cost, but they may never find out how much. The bad bank, known as FMS Wertmanagement, has no plans to release financial statements, according to Soffin, the German government organization that oversees bank rescues.

it is hard to commit today to practice fiscal rectitude tomorrow. Official debt caps, such as the Maastricht fiscal criteria and the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), failed because they were unenforceable.

The introduction of Eurobonds – joint, aggregate eurozone liabilities – could be part of the solution, if designed properly. There is certainly demand for them in China and other major emerging countries, which are desperate for an alternative to low-yielding US government securities.

In most cases, mining tar sands involves drilling two horizontal wells, one above the other, into the bitumen layer; injecting massive gouts of high-pressure steam and solvents into the top well, liquefying the bitumen; sucking up the melted bitumen as it drips into the sand around the lower well; and then refining the bitumen into “synthetic crude oil.”

Economists sometimes describe a fuel in terms of its energy return on energy invested (EROEI), a measure of how much energy must be used up to acquire, process, and deliver the fuel in a useful form. OPEC oil, for example, is typically estimated to have an EROEI of 12 to 18, which means that 12 to 18 barrels of oil are produced at the wellhead for every barrel of oil consumed during their production. In this calculation, tar sands look awful: they have an EROEI of 4 to 7. (Steaming out the bitumen also requires a lot of water. Environmentalists ask, with some justification, where it all is going to come from.)

To obtain shale gas, companies first dig wells that reach down thousands of feet. Then, with the absurd agility of anime characters, the drills wriggle sideways to bore thousands of feet more through methane-bearing shale. Once in place, the well injects high-pressure water into the stone, creating hairline cracks. The water is mixed with chemicals and “proppant,” particles of sand or ceramic that help keep the cracks open once they have formed. Gas trapped between layers of shale seeps past the proppant and rises through the well to be collected.

Cyprus had developed its financial center over three decades ago by having double taxation treaties with a number of countries, the Soviet Union for example. That means if profits are booked and earned and taxed in Cyprus, they are not taxed again in the other country. Russian deposits are there because Cyprus has a low corporate tax rate, much like Malta and Luxembourg, which annoys some people in Europe.

In addition, Cyprus has a legal system based on English law and follows English accounting rules

This government took a country with excellent fiscal finances, a surplus in fiscal accounts, and a banking system that was in excellent health. They started overspending, not only for unproductive government expenditures but also they raised implicit liabilities by raising pension promises, and so forth.

Nato defence spending falls despite promises to reverse cuts

Europe's failure to pay its way in Nato is seriously worrying the US, which already provides 75% of all Nato defence expenditure (the US spends 3.8% of its GDP on defence).

Without any of its own maritime patrol aircraft, the UK recently had to request the help of Nato allies to search for suspected Russian submarines off the west coast of Scotland. In Germany there have been reports of serious malfunctions in military equipment.