The eurozone crisis unleashed in autumn 2009 has dominated political developments in Europe over the past few years. On the radical European left there is a sense that the European Union (EU) is disintegrating under the weight of the eurozone crisis and that the crisis has exacerbated centrifugal tendencies — national antagonisms and class confrontations — leading to both political crises and the rise of the populist right.

The most daring contend that the eurozone crisis is a re-run of the 1930s, with fascists lurking in the background while others see a revolutionary silver lining — that the balance of forces is shifting in our favor and that in the coming meltdown the radical left can and will, with the appropriate strategy, make great strides forward.

Cédric Durand argues that these strides will break “with neoliberal European institutions and [regain] democratic sovereignty on domestic currencies” (meaning secession from the eurozone or even, for some, the EU itself).