{"id":1313,"date":"2010-05-15T13:28:29","date_gmt":"2010-05-15T11:28:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=1313"},"modified":"2010-05-15T13:28:29","modified_gmt":"2010-05-15T11:28:29","slug":"1313","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=1313","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

The Euro<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have always been rather ambivalent about the Euro. This Blog is about to take a position which requires focus on the issues. The upside of the single currency for the EU is that everybody can trade on even terms with everybody else and business can operate without the costs and risks of fluctuating currencies. There is a huge, business, commercial and tourism advantage.\u00a0 I remember many years ago driving across Europe to get to the Tyrol, high in the mountains between Austria and Italy. The route took me through nine countries each with its own currency. I became an advocate for just the one after that.<\/p>\n

The downside is that there is a flip side to what a currency is. It is the\u00a0product of the economic structure, values, social and taxation policies and aspirations of the country of which it is\u00a0the legal\u00a0money in circulation. If it is one country that is fine. If it is lots of countries there a problems. If those countries have diverse conditions, traditions, values and assets as well as wealth creation capability, it becomes unworkable and sooner or later it must fall.<\/p>\n

There are reports of a Sarkozy moment when he raged\u00a0at Merkel and threatened if Germany did not pay up to help Greece, France would pull out of the Euro. That would be bad. If Germany refused to pay and itself pulled out of the Euro and went back to the Deutschmark, which is almost certainly what the majority of Germans want, it would be a calamity. The only solution is for there to be one Federal Economic Council controlling all financial policy in Euroland, leaving the nation states no more control of their economic affairs than individual States in the U.S.<\/p>\n

This council would be dominated by Germany , whose support would be required for every significant decision.\u00a0 Many governments in Europe, especially the smaller ones, may favour such a step, but there is now hardly a population\u00a0of any nation in Europe which would vote for that in a referendum other than Germany. It is not likely to happen.<\/p>\n

If it does not the Euro is doomed. It could well be that, after all, the preferred British vision of Europe, as a Union of Nation States operating independently and in competition, but without trade barriers and in common political purpose, will be the vision which inspires the model on which all finally unite to fashion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Euro I have always been rather ambivalent about the Euro. This Blog is about to take a position which requires focus on the issues. The upside of the single currency for the EU is that everybody can trade on even terms with everybody else and business can operate without the costs and risks of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-malcolm-blair-robinson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1313"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1318,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313\/revisions\/1318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}