Who Will Lead Europe?

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Felix Salmon sizes up the heads of state:

Europe has a leadership problem raised to the 17th power. One weak or bad leader — Papandreou, or Berlusconi — can suffice to hole the euro project below the waterline. But parachute in the best of all possible leaders into Greece and Italy, and you still have a problem. There’s Germany, and France, and the ECB, and even the likes of David Cameron and Tim Geithner meddling where they’re not really welcome. And the only way that this crisis can work itself out effectively is if they all agree on the same solution.

(Photo: French President Nicolas Sarkozy (L) speaks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel (R), Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (2ndL) and European Council President Herman Van Rompuy upon their arrival for a bilateral meeting before the start of the G20 Summit of Heads of State and Government in Cannes on November 3, 2011. By Dylan Martinez/AFP/Getty Images)