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Saturday, April 23, 2011

Those Wacky Europeans, part 3

I have been most surprised by the Euro crisis.  I admit it.  I simply, and completely out of character for me, took it for granted that the Euro zone would be significantly smaller than the EU.  That is, I bought the initial line that only countries meeting the criteria would join the European Monetary Union, despite the fact that I wrote a book and an article (and heaps of blog posts) with much skepticism about conditionality and membership processes.

Why did I have such a blind spot?  Because I thought that German concerns about controlling the currency would be stronger than the desires for a pretty map with no holes in it.  Stupid me.  Well, really stupid Germans.  So, are there any European specialists following this blog that can tell me what the hell happened?  When and how did the EU toss aside the problems of extending the currency to countries that could not/would not keep their financial house in order?

Now it seems to be the case that the Finns may stand in the way of new bailouts because a xenophobic and anti-EU party (True Finns) has done well in the latest election.  So, the future of the Euro may hang on some wacky Finnish haters.  Wow.

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