Change in the approach to the economic recession and the failures in Europe and elsewhere is in the offing with the victory of the French left in the presidential elections of the Fifth Republic and the seeming intention of the left parties in Greece to fashion a coalition to take power after an inconclusive election.
Francois Hollande, the second socialist President of France, has been elected two decades after Francois Mitterrand, who was the longest serving French President, from 1981 to 1995. During the campaign against the incumbent, right-winger Nicolas Sarkozy, Mr Hollande had as one of his major campaign planks the intention to depart from the austerity measures that have been adopted to fight the economic recession and decline that have spanned the period 2008 to the present, at varying levels of severity, in the international economy.
This means that the French and possibly the Greeks will be at the opposing end of the table from German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The Chancellor is backing the austerity measures that have been outlined by the European Union as the medicine that Greece and other countries in Europe must swallow if they are to receive bailout assistance.
But immediately lining up with Mr Hollande's stated policy are Spain and Italy, two large-especially the latter-European econo-mies which have had serious problems surrounding large and outstanding debts. Across the Atlantic, President Barack Obama, even without the "socialist" ideological tag, has injected billions of dollars into the American economy in the hope of economic revival.
The Germans (disciplinarians to the core), however, have been insisting, even to the US, that financial regulations and holding off from pumping large sums into the corporations which ran riot and caused the economic recession must be the approach to stability. As the largest and strongest economy in Europe, the Germans are not going to cede ground easily, if at all, on this approach to the new French President.
To make that position clear to President Hollande, Chancellor Merkel has made it clear in her congratulatory message to him that she has no intention of renegotiating the tough fiscal package that has been lined up for Greece and others. If Mr Hollande sticks to his pre-election position of advocating spending instead of austerity (but we know that politicians are always agile, ready to adopt new positions when it becomes expedient to do so) as a means to foster growth as opposed to contraction, there could be a logjam on the way forward.
Such a delay will in itself retard revival and perhaps cause even greater stagnation and decline in Europe. Trinidad and Tobago and the rest of the developing world, even the likes of Brazil, China, India and the other advanced developing countries, notwithstanding the self-sustaining economic momentum they have developed, would be hampered if Europe stalls because of conflict over the approach to be adopted.
T&T and the rest of Caricom would suffer overwhelmingly if European decline sets in over policy reforms and those markets begin to reduce their imports from countries such as ours. Inevitably, delayed economic recovery in Europe will soon manifest negatives for the US.
However, Mr Sarkozy is the 11th Eurozone leader who has been swept from office since the economic recession set in. This must surely mean that people are now looking for new approaches to solving continuing and deeply entrenched economic and people difficulties.
Even the self-assured Germans, who have gained economic strength and resilience from discipline and austerity, must be willing to at least take a second listen and to engage in meaningful dialogue to find a way forward. Not only Caricom, but the world economy cannot take another prolonged period of economic recession.
