Europe’s Economic Meltdown: How Did We Get Here?

A look back at the missteps and bailouts, in pictures.

BY CAMERON ABADI | JULY 20, 2011

On Thursday, July 21, European leaders will meet in Brussels for the latest attempt at quelling the continent’s worsening financial crisis. Unfortunately, what a year ago looked like a localized problem affecting a tiny share of the European Union economy has become a ubiquitous and omnipresent threat. Having tried austerity and monetary stimulus, chastisement and feigned confidence, European leaders are quickly approaching the end of their playbooks. And with Italy, one of the world’s largest economies, now teetering on the brink, it’s not at all clear this story will have a happy ending.

Above, at the Sodoma bar in central Reykjavik on April 25, 2009, a man relieves himself in a urinal plastered with photographs of Icelandic bankers who fled the country after the financial crash.

OLIVIER MORIN/AFP/Getty Images

Europe’s shift from financial concern to financial basket case began in an unlikely corner of the continent: Iceland. When world credit markets dried up in late 2008 after the collapse of Lehman Brothers investment bank,