Europe's ongoing debt crisis is causing many to worry that the 27-nation European integration project, launched out of the ashes of World War II, may be doomed. At the center of this unfolding drama are Germany and Greece, two countries that epitomize the culture clash taking place between austerity-prone northern Europeans and their more spendthrift Mediterranean counterparts. Greece is on the verge of bankruptcy, weighed down by its vast sovereign debt burden, which some experts think could lead to the failure of the euro -- the common currency used by Greece and 16 other EU members. Fiscally strong Germany, which led the EU bailout of Greece, has become an increasingly dominant decision-maker among the current EU-27. Amid the economic drama, the EU itself is changing: Its center of gravity has shifted markedly eastward since 10 former communist-bloc countries joined in the 2000s. And despite the union's current financial woes, Muslim Turkey and several volatile Balkan nations also want to join the EU.

Brian Beary -- a freelance journalist based in Washington, D.C. -- specializes in EU-U.S. affairs and is the U.S. correspondent for Europolitics, the EU affairs daily newspaper. Originally from Dublin, Ireland, he worked in the European Parliament for Irish MEP Pat 'The Cope' Gallagher in 2000 and at the EU Commission's "Eurobarometer" unit on public opinion analysis. A fluent French speaker, he appears regularly as a guest international relations expert on various television and radio program. Apart from his work for Congressional Quarterly, Beary also writes for the European Parliament Magazine and the Irish Examiner daily newspaper.