A crucial year for Europe

Next year will be crucial for the future of Europe as three major institutions will see major change.

It will be the first time that a new head of the European Central Bank will be selected, a new European Commission be appointed and elections be held for the European Parliament in the same year, Enrico Letta, former prime minister of Italy, noted on Thursday. 

"The change of institutions is not disconnected from politics," Letta stressed. "Who is president of the ECB is not inconsequential to the average European's life. I believe that if we didn't have Mario Draghi at the ECB we wouldn't have Europe today. I think everything would have fallen apart," he said.

It was an apparent reference to Draghi's rejecting German objections and declaring in 2012 that the ECB would do "whatever it takes to preserve the euro," putting an end to uncertainty regarding the common...