Political Economy

What may a major global financial crisis actually look like? How may it feel, what kind of form and shape may it take in the mundane and in the common, in the spaces of our everyday coexistence?

These questions had been tormenting the crisis-scape project from the outset, questions that we in turn posed to our guests at our concluding conference that took place in Athens in May this year. Rather than trying to reflect upon the conference as a whole (which would have been a nearimpossible task, with its twenty-two contributions in total), this Special Feature has chosen to focus on highlighting a relationship between it and the previous outcome of the crisis-scape.net team: the documentary Future Suspended. An experimental play, in a sense, between the main structure that we ourselves had set for our documentary—and by extension, the structure of our research project as a whole—and the contributions presented in Athens during those early May days. The conversation is intriguing, even if not entirely pre-planned; could it be so for that exact reason?

The article argues that many of the issues that are causing trouble in the eurozone today had long been debated, but not solved, prior to the beginning of the so-called euro crisis. Three thematic examples are used to show this: the decade-long discussion surrounding economic convergence and the question of a transfer union; the dispute over the alleged use of financial mechanisms as a substitute for addressing structural economic weaknesses; and the development of European banking regulation and supervision before the creation of the single currency. Finally, the article argues that even though some of the features of today’s crises – in particular the debt and deficit issues – were outlined at the time of the euro’s introduction, some important recent developments such as the various new operations undertaken by the European Central Bank were not. This should command modesty and cautiousness in the analysis of the evolution of the euro crisis.