Whether the euro endures depends on many factors, including the quality of European leadership. Nowhere is this more important than in Germany. Merkel will never be a visionary, but she is a practical problem solver. Churchill famously said that “the Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing...after they have exhausted all other possibilities.” Those who fear the consequences of Europe’s euro crisis are counting on the same being true of the Germans.

Charles Grant is director of the Centre for European Reform and author of numerous CER publications, including Is Europe Doomed to Fail as a Power? (2009) and Cameron’s Europe: Can the Conservatives Achieve their EU Objectives? (2009).