Eastern Europe goes to Hell

Over in Eastern Europe, the recession is threatening fragile governments and alliances, promising the kind of chaos not seen since the Thirties.

The global economic crisis has thrown up the unlikeliest of European marriage counselors. As the financial storm threatens to capsize some of the weakest economies in Eastern Europe, it is Robert Zoellick, once George W. Bush’s Deputy Secretary of State and now President of the World Bank, who has become the most outspoken defender of a united Europe. Last month, he warned EU bankers and politicians that they had a responsibility toward keeping the 20 year-old East-West European marriage intact.