Quote Originally Posted by Graham Breeze View Post
Are you suggesting that subsequent events (in Italy, Greece...)have turned what was a good idea at the time into a catastrophe rather than that the governments of countries outside the Paris/Berlin axis were at fault in not seeing ahead?
As Oracle said it was never a good idea. And yes they should have seen ahead. After all they were given plenty of warnings. Do you remember William Hague calling the euro a burning building with no exits?

This article replaying an interview with Nigel Lawson from 1998 is amazingly prophetic.

https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2011/0...n-on-the-euro/

Lawson states that the single currency has to be "buttressed by very substantial fiscal transfers, which happens automatically under a federal system."

‘People say that the shocks will force these countries to make the supply-side reforms that will be needed. That must be a gamble and a politically naive one at that. Moreover,it’s
putting the cart before the horse. All history shows that if you want to create a political union, you do that first and the single currency follows. America’s history shows that, and so does Germany’s

And how about this for a prediction:

‘It’s very difficult to say what an optimal currency area is, but the bigger you get – and this one’s set to be very big and intended to get bigger – a one-size-fits-all monetary policy becomes less and less probable. It produces problems, even in the United States. This danger will be particularly acute when the first recession comes along. It’s going to be very nasty indeed, I fear. The Germans are very concerned that the phase of budgetary discipline will break down.

I always remember at the time opponents of the euro in this country were dismissed as "little Englanders". But they were spot on weren't they.