The news from Europe is not good. So serious has its sovereign debt crisis become, that at worst it threatens not only to bring down the Eurozone but also to make unviable the European integration process Hopefully this will not happen, and over the next week European leaders will be able to agree how to avert the danger that spreading economic contagion in Europe will trigger renewed financial turmoil in a weak global economy.
All of this may seem remote from the Caribbean but it is not. Europe remains a key trading partner, a source of investment, the origin of many of the region’s visitors, and is committed to provide development assistance and still offers preferential if now diminished arrangements for Caribbean commodities. Its economic decline has,