Paul Krugman’s take on the news from Europe over the past weeks:
However, something has changed in the past few weeks. Several events — the collapse of the Dutch government over proposed austerity measures, the strong showing of the vaguely anti-austerity François Hollande in the first round of France’s presidential election, and an economic report showing that Britain is doing worse in the current slump than it did in the 1930s — seem to have finally broken through the wall of denial. Suddenly, everyone is admitting that austerity isn’t working.
But the specter of deficits and even higher borrowing costs means that austerity policies are likely to continue, according to Krugman, despite evidence that they’re “probably self-defeating.”