I am being very anti today, so I will not write about the latest invention to occupy our minds and discussions and get us to fall out and bicker among ourselves – the Spring hunting referendum.

Could that be all we care about in today’s dangerous world?

There is much to say about last week’s Charlie Hebdo attacks and the ongoing security searches across Europe to uncover the apparently vast networks of jihadis waiting for the signal.

The news of these ongoing investigations do not seem to have reached our shores, even if the Italian media is speaking of two jihadis nabbed just as they were about to cross over from France to Italy.

And of a vast network of jihadis coordinated from Greece with a Belgian at its head.

We had our discussions post Charlie Hebdo. Predictably, these fell between the anti-Islamists and the anti-anti-Islamists, and xenophobia emerged from all quarters, so nothing changed much, at least here. There was no sense at all that we could be in greater danger than we thought.

My plea last week, for greater vigilance by those who protect and defend our national integrity, seemed to fall on deaf ears, with just a statement from MIA, that I remember, announcing increased measures at the airport, which usually means more soldiers or police on patrol, while a person who works there who said incoming passengers are not being properly screened, seemed to get no traction.

We are a nation of ostriches (which may be why we get so het up discussing hunting) and despite the ever-increasing number of Libyans living in our midst, we still refuse to become seriously concerned about what is happening over there, which is just a short half-hour flight from here.

Beyond our small, insular horizon, things are moving or may soon be doing so, over the coming week or so. What will or may happen, will have direct consequences for us as well.

On the one hand, on Thursday, the European Central Bank may well decide, at last, to come up with quantitative easing, hoping to kick-start a growth that seems nowhere in sight.

Then, today week, the Greeks will vote in a premature general election that will most probably put eurosceptic Syriza in power.

The two events are profoundly linked.

Greece was the country that suffered most in the post-2008 years, as year after year saw an enormous squeeze being put on it by the troika (the Commission, IMF and the World Bank) to get it to improve its very bad financial situation.

Over the past seven years, it saw negative growth year after year; wages were cut, people lost their jobs, an entire generation was wiped out in over 20% unemployment.

The underlying economic situation has improved no end, but now, austerity fatigue seems to have set in, plus Syriza has come up with a very appetising manifesto: increasing the minimum wage, free benefits to the poorest, and above all, tackling the oligarchs who still have an iron grip over the country’s industrial might through cosy deals to get government contracts, free television stations to do their bid, and of course, kicking back at Troika pressures and if necessary, suspending or defaulting on deals with the EU and with its member states (which includes us as well since we have lent, nation-to-nation, funds to Greece we may never get back).

Over the past months, Syriza has mellowed and removed the most outrageous of its promises to the electorate. To an observer, the Greek history of the past century or so does not fill one with optimism that the electorate will go for long-term gains rather than short-term ones.

If Syriza wins the election, one will have to see whether it can govern alone (hardly likely) or whether it can find a coalition. The European partners will be watching to see if Greece intends to default on its commitments, in which case, Greece may not get the next batch of funds, due in April. Without those funds, Greece may become insolvent. Syriza said it could fill the gap in public finances through local banks, but even these seem short of cash - a recent bond issue went unfilled, especially by foreign banks.

The danger is once again of a Grexit (a Greek exit) from the euro, even though two thirds of Greeks want to remain in the eurozone. In 2008, talk of a Grexit filled the entire continent with panic. Today, less so. Many, the Germans especially, seem to take it in their stride.

We must not forget that there exist links between Greece and Malta. The parent of Maltco is Greek and it was in Greece that GO tried its hand at a foreign investment. I find more resemblances between the Greek and the Maltese ways of doing things, although we seem to have done far better than them in taking care of our national finances. We both seem to get euroscepticism in a rather big way.

The outcome of the Greek election will be followed most closely in Spain, which will also have its national election later this year. As I pointed out some weeks ago, Spain now has its own Syriza, an equally far-Left, new political grouping called Podemos, which has come from nothing to threaten to be a very significant force after the election, as it too benefits from widespread austerity fatigue, which has pushed unemployment to beyond the 20% mark.

It is with all this and more as background that the European Central Bank council meets on Thursday, in what may be a very significant meeting, to launch Europe’s version of quantitative easing. The European Central Bank is set to unveil a programme of mass bond-buying next week, to save the eurozone from deflation. When Mario Draghi promised to do ‘all it takes’ to save the euro some years back, he did save the euro, but did not spend one euro to do so.

Now, Europe is in deflation and seeing very feeble growth in the coming years, piling more and more misery on those already suffering from job losses and austerity.

Like the US and the UK did before it, and Japan recently too, the ECB seems to have become convinced that only a vast programme of quantitative easing can kick-start growth. Very serious economists have even come to suggest a ‘helicopter drop’ of money to each and every EU citizen may do the trick.

Until the recent hours, the Germans and the Finns have been resisting such profligacy.

Policy makers in Frankfurt are expected to take the momentous decision to embark on quantitative easing on Thursday, with the most likely option at this stage being for the ECB to force the 19 national central banks that make up the eurozone to stand behind their own sovereign bonds.

The ECB would be crazy if it had not considered the wisdom of launching a massive government bond-buying programme to avert a dangerous eurozone-wide deflationary slump just three days before a Greek poll that could see the anti-reform Syriza party taking power — not least given German sensitivities towards riding to Greece’s rescue.

All this, of course, is in the future. This year seems to pack quite a number of surprises. We never knew Charlie Hebdo existed before last week and most of us would not have heard of Syriza, Podemos or quantitative easing.

Understanding the issues and watching the interplay between the various issues and countries that make up our continent, should be riveting over the coming weeks and months.

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