Alpha.Sources: "The glass is half empty for CEE countries and the EU after the latest summit"

In an amazingly well-written post, Alpha.Sources discusses the outcomes of the EU summit on the economic crisis last weekend.

Claus focusses on the situation in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) - thus the eastern EU countries, a category that has recently been discussed in this blog and beyond.

But Alpha.Sources' remark on the issue is the best I have read so far:

I cannot help but feel that pointing towards heterogeneity amongst the CEE is rather like pointing towards heterogeneity in the context of critical patients on an intensive ward. Surely, one patient may be closer to the brink than another but common to all of them is that they are in pretty bad shape.

His overall conclusions on the outcomes of the summit are semi-negative, seeing the glass half-empty instead of half-full:

Ultimately, a much more systemic perspective is needed here and we need to realize that a case by case approach does not work. This does not mean that the CE economies are not different; it merely means that the EU and the Eurozone need to see this as an integral part of the fight to keep the economic edifice from crumbling entirely.

But read the complete post to understand how he gets to that point!

(The text is cross-posted on A Fistful of Euros and Eastern Europe Economy Watch)