Gray Rhino in Human History: European Debt Crisis

Gray Rhino: European Debt Crisis
Name:
Institutional Affiliation:
Introduction
European debt crisis is one of the greatest examples of Gray rhino in human history. Something that started as a small local policy shock in Greece, later became a major threat not just in the euro but the world at large. Its onset saw Greece sink into a serious debt in 2009 and in less than three years, several other countries including Ireland, Portugal, and Spain were in serious sovereign debt default. With the crisis worsening in 2011 and 2012, Germany and France were forced to support sovereign defaulters through relevant bodies such as IMF and European Central bank (ECB). Entirely, the financial measures introduced and implemented in the euro were not questioned and as explained by Kahler, (2019) the euro debt crisis was largely a result of uncooperative behaviors between policy makers in Europe and respective countries. Hofstetter, Smith, & Hipfl, (2018) notes that the fundamental cause of the European debt crisis was “the lack of discipline to stick to the sound and competitive macroeconomic base and solid public finance” (Loftsdóttir, Smith, & Hipfl, 2018). Europe’s fiscal framework failed to establish the required fiscal discipline across the euro and eventually sank the euro region to a massive debt problem which resulted in tougher austerity measures thereafter. Clearly, even with the lessons from the Lehman brother’s bankruptcy of 2008 which led the world to a deep recession, euro did take the initiate to cushion its union from crisis. It did not establish penalties for countries that violated the debt-to-GDP ratio and there were no harsh penalties for defaulters, simply because no one wanted to weaken the euro power through harsh measures such as expulsions or sanctions. European debt crisis, one of the great Gray rhino, serves as a lee way through which we start to look at wider issues such as gender, race, and national understanding of self and others across borders.
The EU Debt Crisis Debate
As argued, the European debt crisis occurred as a result of long run structural deficits, which were noted but not corrected in the first decade by the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). It sank nations and literary saw the establishment of tougher measures and today, the extensive talk about the European debt crisis raises more questions about the future of EU, its people and immigrants, its relationship between member states, future crisis, and its monetary union. With the occurrence of the European debt crisis, the debate shifted from the economic concerns to several other social concerns including migration, race, nationalism, among others. According to Schneider & Slenthem, (2018), the European debt crisis offers a sound social and pollical experiment that should not be ignored like before. Today’s society is full of crisis and every nation is faced with the role of seeking alternatives through best ways possible including international cooperation. But despite moves to enhance international cooperation some nations are pursing options to increase their own power relative to that of other states (Loftsdóttir, Smith, & Hipfl, 2018). In the past few years, Brita...