After three years of almost perpetual crisis, 2013 opened in a surprisingly optimistic mood. Leaders of the battered single currency have started to declare that the war is over — and that they have won.
“I think we can say that the existential threat against the euro has essentially been overcome,” the European Commission President José Manuel Barroso proclaimed in a speech in Lisbon earlier this month. The euro crisis is “behind us,” argued French President Francois Hollande just before Christmas. “The most acute phase of the crisis appears to be definitely over,” insisted Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti.
