Minutes of the Riksbank’s July 4 policy meeting, published today, see deputy governor Lars Nyberg become the latest central banker to lambast the eurozone authorities over their handling of the Greek crisis. From the minutes:

Economically it would have paid off to find a solution to the Greek crisis a long time ago, given the costs in the form of less efficient markets and falling stock markets that the uncertainty has led to. However, Greece is now part of the euro area and this means that the crisis must be resolved politically and at the European level. Mr Nyberg noted that the European mechanisms for resolving crises do not appear to work particularly well.

Financial market investors are wondering, and justifiably so, how a crisis in a larger country could possibly be managed if it is not even possible to reach agreement on how to deal with Greece.

Quite. Because of this, he says, “a relatively minor economic crisis may quickly become a major political crisis”. (Note that this was before events in Italy took a turn for the worse.) Read more