Sovereign Debt Crisis: The Moment When The EU Almost Collapsed

While there are plenty of bears who think that the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis wasn’t solved so much as kicked down the road, the markets and most analysts are optimistic that Europe (not just Germany) is finally pulling out of the recession. With a couple years’ distance and six months’ worth of interviews, Peter Spiegel at the Financial Times has recreated the tense negotiations at the November 2011 G20 conference in Cannes that shaped Europe’s response to the crisis.

The G20 conference had already been scheduled, but when German Chancellor Angela Merkel and...