New Zealand observers of the long drawn-out death throes of the eurozone might be excused for finding it hard to understand what is going on. They will have lost count of the number of times that Europe's leaders have proclaimed that they have yet again found a permanent solution to the eurozone's ills.
The difficulty is compounded by the determination of Europe's leaders - born of either self-delusion or a deliberate intention to deceive - to describe the worsening crisis in deeply misleading terms.
As Brian Fallow explained in these pages last week, the talk in Berlin and Paris is all about deficits. The crisis is caused, we are told, because eurozone governments have irresponsibly spent like drunken sailors and have allowed their deficits to spiral out of control. This narrative is of course very congenial to fiscal conservatives.
The facts, however, tell a quite different story. Virtually all of the eurozone governments, with the exception of Greece, have maintained a generally prudent stance, either staying in surplus or running deficits well within the 3 per cent limit dictated by the Maastricht Treaty.
There have been of course occasions when individual governments have, for a short time and for good reason, temporarily run deficits above the 3 per cent limit. And interestingly, these supposed miscreants have included those governments that are now leading the charge to tighten the rules.
Even the Greek deficit is to be explained in terms that do not correspond with the story told by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Greece is as much a victim as a culprit. Greece was never going to live with the monetary regime required by membership of the eurozone and imposed from Berlin. It was the attempt to do so, without being allowed the usual remedies for lack of competitiveness offered by exchange rate and monetary policy that led directly and predictably to Greece's woes.
What was true of Greece is also true - to varying degrees - of many other eurozone countries. It is the futility of the attempt to require so many diverse economies, at different stages of development and with such different interests, to subject themselves to a single and largely inappropriate monetary policy, that is the true explanation of the eurozone's difficulties. The deficit contagion is the result and not the cause of the crisis.
Not surprisingly, the misdiagnosis of the malaise has led to a succession of misplaced remedies and, worse, a failure to grapple with the problem that demands and is susceptible to an immediate solution - the need to ensure that Europe's banking system does not collapse for lack of liquidity. That failure has placed the global economy in extreme danger of a double-dip recession.
But it is the longer-term outlook for Europe that is even more depressing. The so-called "solution" agreed in Brussels will simply make matters worse. Far from releasing member countries from an economic straitjacket, Europe's leaders have decided in their wisdom to give the lock a double turn.
If the new arrangement holds, which seems doubtful, this would simply condemn Europe to an economic policy that makes it inevitable that half the European economy will, in effect, have to close down. Without access to exchange rate and monetary policies suited to their own circumstances, many eurozone countries will collapse under the burden of policy dictated from Berlin. And just to make doubly sure, the arrangement will tighten the rules and impose severe penalties for any breaches.
Committing Europe's diverse economies to a one-size-fits-all blueprint would be bad enough. But the dangers are compounded because the blueprint is in fact a recipe for increased austerity across the board, whatever the needs of individual economies.
Germany may prosper in conditions decided in Berlin; others will not be so fortunate.
The remedy for threatened recession is apparently that eurozone governments must retrench, and achieve a fiscal balance at whatever cost, even if it means running their economies into the ground and thereby making their deficits worse.
Such policies applied across Europe will simply drive the European economy into depression.
Democracy, of course, has played no role in any of this. The people of Europe are required only to bear the burdens of policy failure, not to express an opinion. In implementing the Brussels agreement, no consultation with democratic opinion across Europe is to be countenanced. Elected governments will be supplanted by a political elite who, pinning their hopes on a political mirage rather than economic reality, are perfectly prepared to defy experience and common sense.
Does any of this matter to us? A failure of the European banking system, and a renewed financial crisis, would certainly hurt us. Our overseas borrowing, for example, would become much more expensive and difficult - and a prolonged European recession would also depress our export markets.
But we should also be aware that the issues being played out in Europe have their echo here, albeit on a much smaller scale. The attempt to outlaw steps that elected governments in future might wish to take, for example, to get people back to work is not limited to Europe.
Our own newly elected government has, it seems, signed up in its agreement with Act to do just that.
Bryan Gould is a former British Labour MP and vice-chancellor of the University of Waikato.
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