Patterns of Integration The eurozone is integrated by a common low growth forecast: the European Commission expects the eurozone economy to grow 0.1%, a "macroeconomic rebalancing and adjustment which will last for some time still." Europe's centralizers are trying to help: though Spain for example will miss its deficit targets, Ollie Rehn at the European Commission has granted Spain a few years of relief from mandatory budget cuts. Never letting a good crisis go to waste, high-level discussions of a centralized banking union are underway.
Social & Political Geographies Former Prime Minister of Ukraine, Yulia Tymoshenko, is in prison on a hunger strike "until election abuses have been recognized." US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recognized the abuses, sharing the opinion of Tymoshenko and OSCE election monitors that "the election constituted a step backward for Ukrainian democracy." President Viktor Yanukovych, whose allies are expected to dominate the Ukrainian parliament, would like Ukraine-US relations "to develop fruitfully, in a spirit of friendship," during President Obama's second term. Religion & Secularization Chancellor Angela Merkel called Christianity the most persecuted religion in the world. The Synod for the New Evangelization in Rome issued a series of propositions.
The Movement of Peoples An independent group of Swiss environmentalists (ECOPOP) has joined the Swiss People's Party in demanding a referendum to reduce the level of legal immigration into Switzerland. (The group is inspired by Paul Ehrlich's famously wrong book, The Population Bomb.) Without any sort of referendum at all, local officials outside Madrid have demolished the homes of Spanish Roma. Reflecting on similar destructions, Chancellor Merkel and President Gauck opened a memorial to Roma murdered by the Nazis.