Seven days that shook Europe

France and Germany called for Europe's leaders to agree strict rules for fiscal discipline at their summit this week, as Standard and Poor's threatened the region with sweeping ratings downgrades.The bold call by President Nicolas Sarkozy and Chancellor Angela Merkel for a rewrite of the EU treaty to set uniform tough budget standards across the eurozone raised hopes that the region might finally take decisive, comprehensive moves to end the debt crisis.

Europe should be really happy that March is over. It was a disastrous month. There were three main stories. All of them bad.

The European Central Bank insists the eurozone will not fall back into recession, saying the worst of the debt crisis is past and other economies should now be fixing their public finances.ECB chief economist Juergen Stark told reporters last week: "It seems that the worst is over" after a key ECB loan deadline passed smoothly and German data showed industrial production in Europe's top economy had soared in May.

From a discussion of the Dutch political system being in the pocket of Big Oil to warning that German policy stipulations and the Euro itself could "potentially destroy the European Union," amid rebellion, George Soros has drastically reduced all Euro-related exposure from his portfolio - only a few weeks after his cautious optimism that Europe is 'revived' in Davos.

We are told that eurozone finance ministers meeting on Monday night in Brussels are keen to put the crisis in the single currency behind them. Well, maybe. But you could argue that they shouldn't put it too far behind them. Why? Because across the eurozone, governments are pinning their recovery hopes on a weak euro. And in 2011, most analysts are expecting the euro to go up.