Monday's global agenda: Out with the new Europe, in with the old

Your morning global affairs speed-read

Europe's experiment with spending less money than it makes is coming to an end, with unpredictable repercussions for the United States.

Francois Hollande's election Sunday to the presidency of France on a platform of growth through government spending is likely to reinvigorate the deficit-reduction debate in Congress. At the same time, its long-term impact on European financial markets remains to be seen.

"Austerity need not be Europe's fate," Hollande told his supporters following his election as the first socialist president since 1995.

As of this morning, however, the German government was already warning Hollande that it was "not possible" to renegotiate the European fiscal pact.

Hollande has also called for a faster withdrawal of French forces from Afghanistan, another potential headache for President Obama.

Legislative elections in Greece, meanwhile, might prove even more momentous. 

The two mainstream parties of the left and right suffered a stunning rebuke for backing austerity policies, together pulling in less than a third of the vote and leaving Greece's participation in the euro in grave doubt. Meanwhile, anti-austerity parties — including extremists on the left and right — won the night with promises to renegotiate the terms of the country's recent $171 billion EU/IMF bailout, a stance that's unlikely to get a warm reception in Washington.

In Serbia, meanwhile, a pro-European Union candidate and his nationalist opponent seemed headed for a runoff in the presidential elections, while the ruling pro-Western party appeared likely to form the next coalition government, The Associated Press reports.

Syria: The war-torn country is holding its own elections today. President Bashar al-Assad calls them the first multiparty legislative elections in five years. The opposition is boycotting the poll, calling it a sham designed to keep al-Assad in power.

Russia: Welcome back, Vladimir. Russian President Vladimir Putin is sworn in today to a third term as president of the Russian Federation following a four-year hiatus as prime minister. His decision to seek the highest office was greeted with unprecedented popular protests in December.

Putin dangled the possibility of a new and improved relationship with the United States during a meeting this past week with Obama's top security aide, the Interfax news agency reported. "Putin emphasized that in developing the relationship with the United States, Russia is ready to go really far, on condition that the Americans will act on the principles of an equal and mutually respectful partnership," foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov was quoted as saying. In the same breath, however, Russia threatened missile strikes if the United States goes forward with plans to install a missile defense shield in Poland and Romania.

Arab Spring: The United States and other Western nations participate in a two-day conference, starting today in Cairo, on reviving private investment in Arab Spring countries. 

The public-private conference is a good chance for the United States to fight terrorism through economic development instead of drone strikes, says Bloomberg-Businessweek.

Afghanistan: The United States has for several years been secretly releasing high-level detainees from a military prison in Afghanistan as part of negotiations with insurgent groups, The Washington Post reports.

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