It cracks me up that we get all excited ahead of these seemingly monthly “summits to end all summits”. Earlier this month they were supposed to leverage the EFSF to gargantuan levels and all the euro zone’s problems would be solved. Here we are weeks later and the EFSF has not been leveraged by one thin dime and they’ve barely been able to sell the bonds related to earlier bailouts despite their coveted AAA status.
This time around we will get the outlines of changes that Germany and France want to make to the EU treaty to codify fiscal integration to the extent that the EU can send national budgets back to the drawing board if they don’t measure up to euro area rules.
How long will that process take? Quite a while, I’m sure. Some countries will want to put the question to a referendum, potentially. That’s always good for some volatility…
We’ll likely have a few more summits along the way though, don’t you worry. As I said earlier, mark this date on your calendar: December 9…
