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The World Next Week: Can the EU Rescue Itself?

By experts and staff

Published
  • James M. LindsayCFR Expert
    Mary and David Boies Distinguished Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy
European national flags outside of the EU Parliament in Brussels. (Francois Lenoir/courtesy Reuters)
European national flags outside of the EU Parliament in Brussels. (Francois Lenoir/courtesy Reuters)

The World Next Week podcast is up. Sebastian Mallaby kindly sat in for me this week. He and Bob McMahon discussed the upcoming European Union summit, the Greek parliament’s 2012 budget vote, the Bonn II conference on Afghanistan’s future, and prospects for new sanctions on Iran following the attack on the UK embassy in Tehran.

[audio: https://www.cfr.org/content/publications/media/podcast/2011/20111201_TWN…]

The highlights:

The Washington Post reports that European leaders may be on the verge of taking aggressive new steps to save the eurozone, and the New York Times provides a helpful Q&A on the current state of the crisis. Reuters reports that Greek workers are striking to protest austerity measures in the 2012 budget, and also argues that Greece has garnered too little international attention recently. The Atlantic writes that the Bonn II Conference on Afghanistan will have no real substance if Pakistan and Iran do not attend, but Linda Robinson argues in Foreign Policy that there is still hope for a stable Afghan state. The BBC reports that the EU will impose new sanctions on Iran in the wake of the attack on the British embassy, and Max Boot writes in the Los Angeles Times that the West is failing to take sufficient steps to address the threat of Iran.