Baltic brinkmanship

摘要

Alive does not mean well. Unprecedent-ed international efforts have kept Latvia, the European Union's weakest economy, from disaster. At the height of the financial turmoil last autumn a bank run, currency crisis or similar mishap in Latvia could have caused a devastating collapse of confidence elsewhere. First in line were the other Baltic states, also suffering from popped credit bubbles and pegged currencies. But a failure in Latvia could also have hurt Sweden (where the banks have lent recklessly to the Baltic states) and might have capsized wobbly ex-communist economies farther afield, such as Hungary.