At the beginning of the new year, Europe is caught in a pincer movement at both ends of its south.

On the one hand, in Greece, there is the likely winner of the 25 January snap election. The party currently leading in the polls is the left-wing Syriza, which opposes the current austerity regime. Syriza is making the rest of the eurozone quite nervous with its promise that, if elected, it would attempt to renegotiate the existing bailout. 

After the vote, one of the first tweets sent from Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras was a response to fellow left-winger Pablo Iglesias, the head of Spain's Podemos party.

While Tsipras's rise in Greece has been impressive, the rise of Iglesias and Podemos is even more mind-blowing. Podemos isn't even one year old as a party, and already it's polling near the major parties. Like Syriza, Podemos strongly opposes the path that the eurozone has taken. 

Tsipras's tweet to Iglesias wasn't the first time the two have linked up publicly. In May, after Iglesias won a seat in the European Parliament, his party tweeted a picture of him talking to Tsipras on the phone.

Lost in our small world, in our Punch & Judy politics in which we end up saying what the other side has said at some point or other and getting very hot under the collar at the other side (and vice-versa), we fail to see the bigger picture.

On both sides of the divide, we all seem convinced that Europe has come out of the crisis and that the future beckons. We are fed, again from both sides of the divide, fulsome tales how our economy is growing and booming. We may differ as to the rates of growth this side or that side of March 2013, but mainly we all agree that we are on an upward trajectory.

We keep believing this in the face of any or all evidence to the contrary, even that which tells us our salaries and wages have not increased as those in competing countries have.

We keep getting positive messages about our low levels of unemployment without bothering to cross-reference this with GDP per person or buying power.

And basically, while continuing to bicker like cats trapped in a sack, we all believe in Europe, the EU and the euro. We are the most Europhile country in the entire EU.

We do this without understanding the real issues at play out there and what it is that is driving the Greeks to Syriza and the Spanish to Podemos.

Nor are these two countries the only ones to have issues. Britain is in the throes of a very difficult election with UKIP ready to benefit from popular disenchantment with Europe which may lead it, in the year when Malta will be EU President, to choose to exit.

France is awaiting the complete collapse of the Hollande presidency, now below 20 per cent in the approval ratings, with Marine Le Pen ready to win the next presidential election.

Italy continues to stagnate as no progress has been made and is now in the throes of a presidential election that stops all other political business.

On a EU-wide dimension, the repeated reassurances by the EU leaders at each and every Council that things are looking up, that the ultimate solution to Europe's ills has been found, ring more hollow the more they are repeated. Jean-Claude Juncker's big bazooka has yet to be fleshed out and, seeing it depends more on EU member states, it is unlikely to amount to much. This is all understandable seeing that the first tranche of aid given by the member states, including Malta, to Greece (the first aid was bilateral - country to country) is now considered to be irretrievable. There is no hope Greece will ever be in a position to repay that.

So far, Europe has lurched on, mainly by default, sometimes on the mere strength of Draghi's commitment to do 'all it takes' to save the euro, without being put to the test so far.

The banking union the EU was supposed to be putting in place is still very far from taking shape, and people here have not been told about the pain our strategic banks had to suffer to pass the Asset Quality Review, and, again, have not been put to a real test so far.

Europe is still in a big mess, which is understandable as it moves from a collection of nations to a real union. It has no real single market, especially in the services sector. As for being an energy union, it is still very much in a state of disunion.

Yet there is, so far, no other alternative in sight. Will the British be so courageous to explore an alternative route? Or the Greeks with the bravado of Syriza? Or Podemos?

That we may see in the coming months or years. Certainly, these will be turbulent months. The other countries, the ones I have not mentioned, keep on the high moral ground led by Chancellor Angela Merkel. But with the rest of Europe in a recession or very much near it, Germany has lost one of its principal markets and now it has lost its other market which is Russia. So after years in which Europe was pulled up by a strong and growing Germany, it is now Europe that is pulling Germany down.

So far, to be sure, the eurosceptics I have mentioned have just one idea about which they agree - that the time for austerity policies is over and it is time for a policy of growth. I still cannot see how they can achieve this but it does look, in these early days of January, that they stand to win in the many elections that are going to be held. Then we will see how they go about their business and whether they will deliver what they have been promising.

As for us, although this is very much a side issue, I really wish the ongoing selection of the Maltese officials, who in just two years will be at the forefront of the Maltese presidency, will be a more national and less partisan effort. We do stand a real danger of seeing many good brains stay out of the fray and of sending people who will not be up to scratch and who may bring disrepute and ignominy on Malta in our first presidency.

All the honeyed words about a national consensus and about working together sound very hollow when heard at ground level. I hold no candle for anybody, but the stakes are very high and Malta's good name is at stake. Only those who have no idea what the issues are would think that planning ahead for 2017 in January 2015 is premature.

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