ATHENS  —  French President Emmanuel Macron’s reelection by a comfortable margin against an opponent with whom he shares a mutual dislike almost obscured a certain co-dependence between their political camps.

ATHENS  —  Once upon a time, capital goods were just the manufactured means of production. Robinson Crusoe’s salvaged fishing gear, a farmer’s plough and a smith’s furnace were goods that helped produce a larger catch, more food, and shiny steel tools.

ATHENS  —  Twenty years ago this month, Europe’s common currency became a tangible reality with the introduction of euro banknotes and coins.

ATHENS — Once upon a time, in the ancient kingdom of Lydia, a shepherd called Gyges found a magic ring, which, when rotated on his finger, made him invisible. So, Gyges walked unseen into the royal palace, seduced the queen, murdered the king, and installed himself as ruler.

ATHENS — Once upon a time, in the ancient kingdom of Lydia, a shepherd called Gyges found a magic ring, which, when rotated on his finger, made him invisible. So, Gyges walked unseen into the royal palace, seduced the queen, murdered the king, and installed himself as ruler.

ATHENS — The silver lining in the gloomy cloud of the pandemic was the opportunity it gave the West to mend its ways. During 2020, rays of light shone through. The European Union was forced to contemplate a fiscal union. Then, it helped remove Donald Trump from the White House.

ATHENS — As the coronavirus pandemic recedes in the advanced economies, their central banks increasingly resemble the proverbial ass who, equally hungry and thirsty, succumbs to both hunger and thirst because it could not choose between hay and water.

ATHENS — A “brutal lesson in geopolitics”, is how the Berlin newspaper Der Tagesspiegel described the announcement of AUKUS, the new security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

ATHENS — On February 9, 1967, hours after the US Air Force pounded Haiphong Harbour and several Vietnamese airfields, NBC television screened a politically momentous episode of Star Trek.