Sunday, May. 20, 2012 |
Special Report: Architects of a currency in crisis
Page last updated at 04:26 GMT, Friday, December 30, 2011 - 09:26 EST
Reuters:
People are silhouetted in front of a large euro coin during a ceremony
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Ten years ago Saturday, the European Union celebrated the launch of the first euro coins and notes with fireworks, parties and solemn speeches.
Today, several members are on the edge of bankruptcy. First-world Europe is reduced to asking the IMF and China for help. The euro itself is at risk of unraveling.
How could it all have gone so wrong?
In a series of interviews with architects of the euro - a former president, a former prime minister, two former finance ministers, a former central banker, a former EU commissioner and a former EU Affairs minister - common explanations emerged.
The single currency would not have sparked the euro zone debt crisis, they argued, if the pro-European dynamic that led to its creation had continued into its first decade. But instead of launching an economic and political integration of Europe, the low interest rates and easy money that arrived with the euro led peripheral states on a path of profligacy, widening the gap with frugal, export-oriented economies of the north.
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