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Simitis examines the European debt crisis with particular reference to the Greek case. He investigates its spillover from a Greek-specific problem to a Eurozone-wide crisis and chronicles the policy responses to combat it. His central argument is that the main cause of the Eurozone's problems was, and still remains, the indecisiveness of European elites to tackle its underlying deficiencies. Leading Eurozone countries have been unwilling to commit to a common long-term plan which could deal convincingly with complex and inter-related problems affecting both its 'core' and its 'periphery'

This chapter explores the possible influences of Sweden, Denmark and Finland on the Environmental Policy of the EU. We focus specifically on the reputation, expertise and role model behaviour of the Nordic EU members and their possibilities to use these factors as cognitive power resources.The chapter discusses several examples where the Nordic EU member states have successfully promoted their national environmental interests within the EU. We also make use of interviews with environmental representatives at the Swedish, Danish and Finnish Permanent Representations to the EU in Brussels, officials from other member states, DG Environment of the Commission and the European Environment Agency. The results indicate that the Nordic EU members have to some extent minimised their quantitative disadvantages, such as small administrations and limited voting powers, by successfully using the cognitive power resources in question within the Environmental Policy of the European Union.