Europe Catches Pneumonia

The current global financial market crisis will claim its share of casualties. Prominent among them may be any further expansion of the European Monetary Union. It is also more than likely that today's global financial market crisis will mark the end of any serious challenge by the euro to the U.S. dollar as an alternate international reserve currency. Not only will a deep and long global economic recession put severe strain on the current fifteen-country euro area, it will also expose the acute external vulnerabilities of those twelve Eastern European countries that are aspiring to full euro area membership.