Last week’s G20 meeting marked the demise of the eurozone’s three-year effort to save itself. The monetary union will be saved, but not from the inside. Its survival will come at the hands of the International Monetary Fund and the emerging economies.

The meeting itself was an embarrassment for France on its own turf. Despite President Nicolas Sarkozy’s call for a “New World – New Ideas” summit, the meeting was about the old world and old squabbles. With Germany, France, Greece, Italy and other neighbours hardly on speaking terms, the rest of the G20 was astonished by the intra-European bickering.

The eurozone mess has exploded from a containable regional crisis in 2009 to a global crisis today. The simple truth is that Europe has been unable to clean up its own act. Why?