Is Europe cursed by hard times?

LISBON, Portugal — The European Union’s leaders may not be as Scrooge-like as their critics allege, but just like Dickens’s miser, they’re finding themselves spooked by a triple haunting — from the ghosts of economic crises past, present and yet to come.

The specter of crisis past comes from Greece, where ongoing fears of political instability have recently seen markets punish the country's stocks and bonds in an eerie replay of the dark days of 2009-2012, when it seemed a Greek economic meltdown could bring down the entire euro zone.

Crisis present has manifested itself in mass anti-austerity strikes that shut down much of Italy on Friday and paralyzed Belgium, the country that hosts the EU headquarters, on Monday. Both were reminders of the deep discontent across Europe after years of anemic growth and stubbornly high unemployment.

Scariest of all, however, is crisis future: the prospect that Europe stands on the edge of a deflationary vortex that will condemn the economy to long-term stagnation and drag alienated voters further into the embrace of political extremists already scratching at the doors of power.

“There isn’t much time," Italy's Finance Minister Pier Carlo Padoan told a group of European newspapers last week. "Europe is at a fork in the road. One path leads to stagnation; the other to growth that we sorely need.”

He and other likeminded moderates working away within the euro zone's decision-making apparatus do have a roadmap pointing the way.

Their Christmas wish list includes France and Italy pushing through reforms to defibrillate their lifeless economies, and Germany launching a stimulus program to boost its own growth and pull the whole bloc along with it.

The plan also calls for the Germans to drop opposition currently holding up an offer by the European Central Bank to pump money into the economy, and for Europe's private sector to buy into a $375 billion public works program that EU leaders will debate at a summit in Brussels this week.

Putting all that into practice won't come easy.

In Dickens' timeless tale “A Christmas Carol,” Scrooge was able to slay his ghosts and banish Christmas austerity with some serious investment in turkey and a spate of Yuletide merrymaking. But the solutions outlined above are running into a "bah, humbug" reaction from powerful voices within the euro zone's 18 members. (Lithuania will become the 19th on New Year's Day.)

First Germany. Europe's biggest economy has lost steam. It's expected to grow at just 1.2 percent this year, outpaced by the United States at 2.2 percent and Britain at 3.1 percent.

Investments are sorely needed: Its once-renowned network of autobahns is potholed and clogged with traffic. The armed forces became the butt of jokes this year after military missions to Iraq and Ebola-infected West Africa were curtailed when their planes broke down.

After years of running a budget surplus with interest rates at record lows, the government is facing domestic and international pressure to boost the economy with public investment and stimulus measures to encourage notoriously cautious German consumers to spend more.

However, the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel fears stimulus could lead to overheating and inflation — the bogeyman of German economists since the 1920s.

Keeping a balanced budget rather than pushing for growth remains the government's top priority, and next year Merkel is hoping to become the first German leader since the 1960s to achieve the so-called "black zero" of a budget without new debt.

"We can stick to our budget plan,” her finance minister, Wolfgang Schauble, told a recent meeting with European colleagues. "We must stay the course even in difficult times.”

The fear of inflation also underpins German resistance to plans by the head of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi to inject money into the economy with a big-time buy-up of government bonds — a tactic known as quantitative easing, which has been used in recent years by the US Federal Reserve and the central banks of Britain and Japan.

German resistance has largely been responsible for restraining the ECB from taking similar action.

"There are indeed a whole row of economic reasons that speak for the rejection of government bond purchases — before you even consider the legal question," Jens Weidmann, president of Germany's central bank, told reporters Monday in Frankfurt.

Although Weidmann has mustered opposition to the stimulus plans within the ECB's governing council, Draghi has suggested he could push ahead in the New Year even at the risk of a split within the bank.

Plummeting oil prices, which are heightening the risk of euro zone deflation — where falling prices stifle business and perpetuate stagnation — are increasing the pressure on him to act.

Hopes of persuading Germany to take a more expansionary approach have rested on convincing Merkel that France and Italy are making sufficient efforts to get their economies into shape by slimming down bloated public sectors, cutting debt and boosting competitiveness.

Still, the center-left governments in Paris and Rome are struggling to get their own supporters and right-wing opposition to go along with reform.

French President Francois Hollande has seen his popularity slump to record lows and faced rebellions from lawmakers in his own Socialist Party.

Unions and vested interests met a modest reform package — including opening stores on Sundays and freeing up routes for private transport operators — with howls of protest.

Parliamentary opposition from right and left, backed by strikes and street protests, has delayed the Italian government’s efforts to push through legislation that would free up labor and other markets, which Prime Minister Matteo Renzi says is essential for dragging the country out of a three-year recession.

That leaves the European Commission’s $375 billion three-year investment program. The EU's headquarters hopes it can spur economic growth without adding to debt by using $26 billion of existing funding to unlock the rest from the private sector.

"Europe needs a kick-start and today the commission is supplying the jump cables," European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said last month. "We need to send a message to the people of Europe and to the rest of the world: Europe is back in business."

The plan aims pump cash into major infrastructure projects as varied as gas pipelines through Central Europe that would reduce reliance on Russian imports, social housing in the Netherlands, and a fast train connection linking the Baltic states to the European rail network.

EU leaders are expected to endorse the idea at their summit Thursday and Friday. Still, few see it as a magic bullet for the EU's problems.

"The investment plan, which certainly can be improved, is a first sign that finally we can go back to discussing growth and not just austerity," Renzi told the Italian parliament Tuesday. "It's a first step, it's not sufficient."

Unless Europe can turn the economy around, many fear the euro zone will face a future similar to Japan's two lost decades of low growth, deflation and unemployment.

But Europe's problems could become even worse given the divisions between euro zone members, the rise of political extremism and the revived Russian threat. The continent’s post-World War II political systems are showing signs of fraying under the economic strain.

Parties riding high in European polls include Nazi-linked groups in Greece and Hungary, ultra-nationalists in France and Italy who look to Vladimir Putin's authoritarian Russia as a model, and Greek and Spanish leftists who speak warmly of Hugo Chavez's rule in Venezuela.

All of them are opposed to the EU, which has underpinned European unity since the 1950s.

Even in Germany, typically a bastion of political normality, there are signs of fractures in the established order.

The radical The Left Party won control of a state government for the first time this month, while the euro-sceptic Alternative for Germany Party and racist National Democratic Party won seats in elections to the European Parliament in May. Meanwhile, thousands have flocked to join rallies organized by a new organization of "patriotic Europeans against Islamization."

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Greece could provide the next test for Europe's new radical politics.

If the parliament in Athens fails to elect a new president for the country by the end of the year, the Greeks will be forced to hold early elections. Polls currently put the Coalition of the Radical Left in the lead, ahead of the governing conservatives. The old-school Greek Communist Party looks to come third just ahead of the openly racist Golden Dawn Party.

The prospect of a victory for the far left has sent markets in a tailspin. Even if Greece's conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras manages to avoid a snap election, it's clear the euro zone will remain in deep trouble.

Without a successful drive to revive economic growth, Europe will increasing recall another Dickens' classic: “Bleak House.”