Corona and the next eurozone crisis

Abstract

The coronavirus pandemic is developing into a global economic crisis. We argue that this might trigger a new eurozone crisis as the Eurozone is even more fragile today than in 2009: While in Southern Europe, the euro crisis has never been entirely overcome, the institutional reform of the architecture of the monetary union to make it more crisis-proof has been politically blocked in the past years. Moreover, the coronavirus crisis so far has hit Italy particularly hard, the country which had been the point of condensation of the contradictions of uneven development in Europe already before the corona pandemic. Against this background, the article concludes by discussing dangers and opportunities that progressive actors are facing in light of a potential second eurozone crisis