Too soon for optimism on Europe’s financial crisis

After a year of harsh reforms, austerity measures and a new bailout for Greece, there is growing optimism that Europe might have put its worst financial days behind it. But such optimism might be premature. Not much has been done to fix the fundamental structural flaws — no central treasury, limited European Central Bank powers, and an effort to save various national banks instead of the Eurozone itself — that plunged the European monetary union into such turmoil in the first place, and thinking the worst has passed is only giving Europe’s decision-makers unwarranted breathing room to fix the Eurozone’s problems.