alt Hacker NewsYeah but it wasn’t the unelected bureaucrats that fucked the EU. It was the German attitude towards debt and the redistribution of surplus. The Eurogroup sheepishly followed whatever Austerity fever dream of Schauble, tanked the Greek economy to teach every other Med country a lesson and by doing so, crippled any chance of post 2009 recovery
The euro group did not follow austerity measures.
Italy's debt has ballooned to 150% of it's GDP, France is heading for 130% in the near future. Whatever happened in the EU, was not Germany's responsibility. Even Greece's debt is way higher than it should be after the Euro zone austerity "cure".
If there had been real austerity and real slashing of the national budgets so that all countries of the euro-zone actually complied with the fiscal pact that says that euro countries should not have a level of debt higher than 60% of it's GDP, then the Euro-zone would actually have some dry powder left to face these uncertain times.
Instead, the only country who seems to try to do something currently is Germany, precisely because it's debt is lower than most Euro-zone countries and therefore it can afford to spend more to try to create growth.
France is running 5%+++ deficit each year and it has not complied with the euro-zone fiscal rules for the last 20 years. Finland has 10% unemployment, Italy is not doing much better.
Where do these countries go from here? Do they cut social services and risk getting ousted in the next election? Do they borrow more and more with not much to show for it? That is the question that is facing these countries and nobody has the answers.