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.
保衛歐元區債務市場的作戰計劃是在規模較小的外圍國家四周築起一道籬笆，以防火勢蔓延到西班牙——並從那裏進一步擴散，那將是噩夢般的情景。形勢的演變，已經使這項作戰計劃浮出了水面。事實表明，惶恐不安的市場並不認爲有必要像伊比利亞人一樣在中途逗留，而是直接對義大利發起了攻擊。義大利是歐元區第三大經濟體，其公共債務負擔之重在歐元區國家中排在第二位。這場危機驟然變得更加駭人起來——只是還不足以使歐洲領導人從驕傲自滿中走出來。