The battle plan for the eurozone debt market has been to ringfence the smaller peripheral countries to avoid contagion to Spain – and its further spread from there, in the nightmare scenario. Events have now blown that battle plan out of the water. Panicked markets, it turns out, see no need for an Iberian stopover before a direct attack on Italy – the single currency’s third-largest economy with its second heaviest public debt burden. The crisis has suddenly turned a whole lot scarier – but not yet scary enough to shake Europe’s leaders out of their complacency.
保衛(wèi)歐元區(qū)債務(wù)市場(chǎng)的作戰(zhàn)計(jì)劃是在規(guī)模較小的外圍國(guó)家四周筑起一道籬笆，以防火勢(shì)蔓延到西班牙——并從那里進(jìn)一步擴(kuò)散，那將是噩夢(mèng)般的情景。形勢(shì)的演變，已經(jīng)使這項(xiàng)作戰(zhàn)計(jì)劃浮出了水面。事實(shí)表明，惶恐不安的市場(chǎng)并不認(rèn)為有必要像伊比利亞人一樣在中途逗留，而是直接對(duì)意大利發(fā)起了攻擊。意大利是歐元區(qū)第三大經(jīng)濟(jì)體，其公共債務(wù)負(fù)擔(dān)之重在歐元區(qū)國(guó)家中排在第二位。這場(chǎng)危機(jī)驟然變得更加駭人起來——只是還不足以使歐洲領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人從驕傲自滿中走出來。