An article from The Economist (gated): Built to foster friendship, the euro is manufacturing misery instead
The piece opens with it'd be funny if it wasn't true point:
How to make sense of a process in which Greek voters loudly spurn a euro-zone bail-out offer in a referendum, only to watch Alexis Tsipras, their prime minister, immediately seek a worse deal that is flatly rejected by the euro zone, which in turn presses a yet more stringent proposal to which Mr Tsipras humbly assents? Better, perhaps, not to try.
It goes on to say:
- The immediate danger of Grexit has at least been averted
- Comes at the price of a vast taxpayer-funded bail-out for Greece, worth up to €86 billion ... and a humiliating capitulation by Mr Tsipras
- Greece's economy is in tatters
- Its creditors are fuming
- Europe's institutions are in despair
- Even non-euro countries have been sucked into the nightmare: a bridge loan designed to keep Greece afloat while the bail-out talks proceed looks set to tap a fund to which all EU countries have contributed
There's more ...
Europe's single currency, designed to foster unity and ease trade between its members, has thus become a ruthless generator of misery for almost all of them.
Dear, oh dear.
