The Crisis of the Southern European Union and its Impact on the American Presidential Election

Abstract

Since 2009, the countries that form the southern part of the European Union (EU) have been experiencing a grave economic, political, and social crisis that has had repercussions throughout the whole of the EU and has especially called into question its fragile system of governance. It has also resulted in Chancellor Angela Merkel imposing upon the rest of the EU her neoliberal political policies as the remedy to the crisis. Germany’s power at the center of the EU has created tensions between the north and the south of Europe and has revealed the precariousness and the inefficiencies of the institutions of government of the European Community. In the American presidential election, the crisis in southern Europe was brought up by the Republican candidate in order to try to show that the economic policies of President Obama would lead the United States down the same road as Greece, Italy, or Spain. At no point was there any analysis of the gravity of this crisis or of its impact on the future of the EU. For the southern countries of the EU, the economic policies of President Obama are what they hoped for. His victory was greeted with relief. A strong, stable, and integrated EU is in the interests of the United States. The alliance between the United States and the EU is more and more important in a multipolar and global world.