Dec

19

Euro busted

December 19, 2006 |

Dominique de Villepin, the French prime minister, has launched an all-out attack on the European Central Bank, calling on eurozone nations to assert political control over the euro and reclaim their economic sovereignty.

Speaking on French radio as the euro surged to fresh records against Asian currencies, he said it was time to “lay everything on the table” and set the proper limits of ECB power. “We must clarify matters in exchange rate policy, which means taking back our sovereignty and our margin for action so the states can play their part,” he said. the telegraph

Jane Jacobs once pointed out that a national, much less a transnational, currency was like five people sharing a set of lungs: one person might be sleeping, another typing at his computer, a third gasping for air as she runs a Marathon. The euro was a daft idea pretty much from the go and it is hardly surprising that even the poet Prime Minister has managed to clue into this fact.

One of the great myths of the European project is that, somehow, Spain, Germany and Poland all have pretty much the same economies. For about three years, after the adoption of the euro, it was possible to pretend that, somehow, they did. Now it isn’t.


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