Kirsty Hughes comments on the eurozone crisis on Politics in Spires blog

Kirsty Hughes has posted a blog on the Politics in Spires collaborative blog with POLIS, University of Cambridge, titled Europes political crisis at heart of eurozone meltdown.

Kirsty writes how the economic crisis is on its way to becoming a fully-fledged political crisis both in individual member states and for the EU as a whole. This developing crisis, she goes on, is charactertised by a triple political whammy:

- Twenty-five of the EUs twenty-seven member states are alienated from the decision-making process in the crisis;

- Neither voters nor member states are supportive of the deeper political integration that could solve the crisis (although it is unlikely that it could happen fast enough anyway)

- And the increasing intrusion of the Franco-German tandem plus European Commission into not only euro member states domestic budgets but also (through high profile public statements and pressure) into their domestic politics is a dangerous shift away from normal EU political behaviour and a combustible situation likely to have highly negative repercussions.

Comments on Kirstys and other blogs at Politics in Spires are most welcome.

Kirsty Hughes is Senior Associate Fellow, Centre for International Studies, University of Oxford