EU

Martin Taylor, chairman of Syngenta and a former chief executive of Barclays, has written a thought provoking article about the perilous state of the European economy in the Financial Times. He observes that while most of the world is quick to blame bankers, the problem is also that European leaders need to make some unavoidable and tough decisions:

The Hill: "Dick Armey: Gingrich campaign turned into 'first-rate vendetta' against Romney"

Las Vegas Sun: "Economic woes, anti-Obama sentiment fail to draw large turnout"

Joel Gehrke: "Tina Brown: Professor Obama 'doesn't like his job'"

Sean Trende: "Obama's 2012 Chances and Democratic Demographic Dreaming"

Berlin
The European Union is stumbling through a new Iran sanctions discussion, as member states wrestle with conflicting policies to thwart Iran's quest to obtain nuclear weapons.

Mario Monti’s appointment as prime minister of Italy has given some hope to observers of the current crisis in the eurozone.

Financial Times: "Europe is now leveraging for a catastrophe"

Merrill Matthews: "The Red State in Your Future"

New York Post: "They want $lice of the occu-pie"

The German Marshall Fund has released data from its annual Transatlantic Trends survey. The most striking finding: “there remains a very strong transatlantic difference of opinion over whether war is sometimes necessary to obtain justice, with 75% of U.S. participants  agreeing with that concept compared to only 33% of European participants.”

The riots in the United Kingdom continue for a fourth straight day. On Tuesday, Londoners awoke to torched cars and street scuffles in Ealing, police horses lining up in Lewisham, and stores and residences in flames in Tottenham. Prosperous boroughs in the capital now resemble war zones, as mobs continue to overwhelm police and loot stores. In the last twenty-four hours, disorder has also spread to cities across England, including Birmingham, Liverpool, Bristol, and Nottingham.

With the debt ceiling debate behind us, now might be a good time to get back to the biggest problem currently facing the world economy: the eurozone. While the European debt crisis may have slipped off Americans' radar screens in the past weeks, its significance has not diminished.

New York Times: "Boehner, Short of Support in House, Delays Debt Plan Vote"

Businessweek: "Why the Debt Crisis Is Even Worse Than You Think"

Time: "Six reasons Europe's debt crisis isn't over"

In a little noticed letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, dated May 9, three House members and four senators wrote, “As strong supporters of the Baltic States in Congress, we were troubled to learn that Russia intends to build a nuclear power plant within 50 kilometers of the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius. This is in addition to the nuclear plant Russia is already building in Kaliningrad, only 23 kilometers from the Lithuanian border. While we support the use of nuclear energy, when done in full compliance with IAEA Safeguards, it appears Russia’s motivation is not to produce electricity but to maintain its stranglehold on energy supplies to Europe.”

Helsinki
If you believe the members of the fastest growing political party in Finland, their country is the sucker, the sap, the patsy among the Nordic nations. Norway never joined the European Union. Sweden and Denmark opted out of using its currency, the euro.