Why Europe Keeps Failing........ merged with "EU Seizes Cypriot Bank Accounts"
- Thread starter Kirkhill
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Kirkhill said:
Yes, more or less:
1. The disciplined, frugal, German led Mitteleuropa (AKA the refined* (and smaller) Eurozone) is the top tier. The members will have all (including the Germans) sacrificed some national sovereignty on the alter of
fiscal and monetary consolidation;
2. The Romans (France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and several others) will be the second tier. They will be tightly bound in bureaucratic "Big Europe" but not part of a monetay union because they cannot discipline themselves;
3. There is a third tier of weaklings ~ clients, in effect, of the EU and subject to its dicta re: e.g. the shape of bananas;
4. The Vikings (Britain, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, even Iceland and Norway, and some others, will join in the fourth tier of the European thingy (in effect the EEA) ~ a loose free trade area which imposes few restrictions
on the sovereignty of the members; and
5. The fifth, lowest tier will be the outsiders looking in: Albania, Russia and so on.
_____
* In the sense of the impurities (Greece, Portugal, etc) having been removed
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This third teir, is it the Eastern European nations formerly known as the Warsaw Pact?
I am starting to think that they are forming another slice of the cake on their own, centered on Poland as the largest and most organized regional power, and if you include historic territories is also including the Baltic Republics and the Ukraine west of the Dnieper river. (although possibly not as "formal" partners, but rather nations which look and reach "west" rather than "east" for diplomatic, military and economic support).
I am starting to think that they are forming another slice of the cake on their own, centered on Poland as the largest and most organized regional power, and if you include historic territories is also including the Baltic Republics and the Ukraine west of the Dnieper river. (although possibly not as "formal" partners, but rather nations which look and reach "west" rather than "east" for diplomatic, military and economic support).
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Thucydides said:
I think the Baltic countries could be lumped in along with the Vikings. They have a lot of shared history (not all of it friendly admittedly but more friendly than the Russians).
The Poles could also be fitted, roughly, into the Viking fold. Their north shore is littered with old Hanseatic ports.
The question becomes trickier as you approach the Danube - because that is both the heartland of the Germans (and the Franks of the Langue d'Oeil) and the invasion route for the horsemen of the steppes (avars, alans, sarmatians, magyars and mongols).
Southern France, (everything south of the Loire or Langue d'Oc) is prototypical Roman.
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Thucydides said:
The definition of Mitteleuropa has been pretty flexible since the 8th century: it has usually included Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, at least parts of Poland and often Lithuania and Latvia, too.
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And it appears that European Commission's president (the would be "President of Europe") Jean-Claude Junkers (a centre-right career politician from Luxembourg) will play hardball and strike first with a proposal to require the UK to take a disproportionately high share of the refugees (or migrants, take your pick) flooding into Italy, according to this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Express:
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/576387/Cameron-EU-plans-migrants-refugees-Med
This will, for the moment, help the Euroskeptics in the Tory party, but many, many responsible Europeans are fed up with Britain and its half hearted commitment to Europe. (That those same "responsible Europeans" ignore French trampling on European Commission policies and decisions is another matter entirely.) The potential impacts, on both the EU and the UK, of a Brexit are hideously complex and I doubt that either group is ready for a UK withdrawal ~ I even doubt that David Cameron understands what question he needs to ask or what might be an acceptable restructuring of the EU to meet Britain's needs/desires.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/576387/Cameron-EU-plans-migrants-refugees-Med
EU to FORCE Britain to take thousands more Med migrants as PM faces 'declaration of war'
EUROPEAN Union bosses will force Britain to take in tens of thousands of migrants rescued from the Mediterranean under plans "seen as a declaration of war", it has emerged.
By PETER HENN
PUBLISHED: Mon, May 11, 2015
In David Cameron's first major challenge as newly-elected Prime Minister, top Brussels official Jean-Claude Juncker has said Britain needs to take as many as 65,000 refugees – more than twice as many as the UK took last year.
Proposals to deal with the ongoing crisis in the Mediterranean, which has left thousands of refugees dead as they try to reach southern Europe, are due to be unveiled by the EU on Wednesday.
One senior official has been reported as saying the plans are "practically seen as a declaration of war", with the Home Office confirming the Government will reject the proposals.
Because Britain has a strong economy and low unemployment while currently taking fewer refugees than Germany, Italy or France, the EU wants the UK to take a larger number of migrants than most other countries in Europe.
The proposals, according by The Times, state: "To ensure a fair and balanced participation of all member states to this common effort… the EU needs a permanent system for sharing the responsibility for large numbers of refugees and asylum seekers among member states."
The scheme has the support of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, which could cause problems for Mr Cameron as he attempts to win agreement from Germany on proposals for EU reform prior to his promised in/out vote on Britain's membership of the 28-nation bloc.
Although Britain will oppose the scheme, it will not be the only EU member state to do so, with Ireland, Hungary and Slovakia also in opposition.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban criticised the proposals on his country's public radio, saying they represented "an unfair and indecent proposal".
He said: "It is a mad idea for someone to let refugees into their own country instead of defending their borders and then to say I will redistribute them among you."
Tens of thousands of refugees - looking to escape civil war in countries such as Syria and Libya - have taken the perilous journey from Africa to Europe via boat in the last year, landing mainly in Italy and Spain.
More than 5,000 people have died after boats operated by smuggler capsized in the Mediterranean.
In total, more than 600,000 people claimed asylum in the EU last year, up by 44 per cent from 2013.
The Home Office confirmed that, while Britain has a "proud history" of giving asylum to this who needed it, it would oppose the scheme.
A spokesman said: "Our focus must be on targeting and stopping the callous criminals who lie behind this vile trade in human beings.
"Therefore we will continue to focus our efforts on enhancing work between the law enforcement agencies, working within the countries of origin and transit and establishing a more effective process of returning illegal migrants."
This will, for the moment, help the Euroskeptics in the Tory party, but many, many responsible Europeans are fed up with Britain and its half hearted commitment to Europe. (That those same "responsible Europeans" ignore French trampling on European Commission policies and decisions is another matter entirely.) The potential impacts, on both the EU and the UK, of a Brexit are hideously complex and I doubt that either group is ready for a UK withdrawal ~ I even doubt that David Cameron understands what question he needs to ask or what might be an acceptable restructuring of the EU to meet Britain's needs/desires.
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And here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Financial Times is what the EU should really be worrying the EU:
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/1501e378-f56b-11e4-8c83-00144feab7de.html?siteedition=intl#axzz3ZpXE0pTf
Europe is badly split: Greek voters (and those of several other Eurozone members) are sick and tired of German imposed austerity; they want to let the "good times roll," again, on the naive assumption that money grows on (someone else's) trees. The Germans and Finns and a few others are equally determined to impose a bit of the good, old fashioned protestant work ethic on the idle Romans.
G r e e c e
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/1501e378-f56b-11e4-8c83-00144feab7de.html?siteedition=intl#axzz3ZpXE0pTf
Greece hits crunch time over €750m repayment to IMF
Shawn Donnan in Washington
May 10, 2015
Monday’s meeting of Eurogroup ministers in Brussels may or may not turn out to be a make or break moment for Greece and the eurozone. There is no doubt that moment is creeping closer, however, or that the International Monetary Fund and the billions it is due to be repaid by Athens this year alone will play a central role in what happens next. Whether a deal is concluded in Brussels or not, Athens owes the IMF €750m on Tuesday.
The money is part of a repayment plan set five years ago as part of a 2010 bailout and the IMF is unyielding about that schedule. One way or another it must be repaid and be repaid on time. No advanced economy has ever defaulted on the 70-year-old IMF, which acts as a lender of last resort to its 188 member governments.
Here are a few things you need to know in the run-up to Tuesday’s deadline:
Greece’s repayment schedule to the IMF is toughest in the weeks ahead . . .
Cancel the summer holidays. Tuesday’s €750m repayment is the biggest that the Greek government has had to make to the IMF so far this year. But it is really just the start of a difficult few months that make it likely that Greece and its creditors are going to have a long hot summer high on brinkmanship and stress, and short on fun.
The immediate discussions are over releasing another €7.2bn from a European-led bailout. Greece owes more than that to the IMF and other creditors in the months to come.
In June alone, Greece owes another €1.5bn to the IMF and it is due to repay the same sum across four payments in September. Meanwhile, it owes some €3bn to the European Central Bank in July and August.
Given its current cash struggles it is unlikely to make all of those payments without receiving at least some of the bailout funds.
Missing a payment to the IMF is not something that happens often . . .
Were Greece to miss its payment it would not be the first time in the fund’s history that had happened. In the 1980s, as many as 25 countries a year missed payments to the fund.
But that figure has come down substantially in more recent years. A 2012 review identified just Somalia, Sudan and Zimbabwe as being more than six months past due to the IMF, although four other countries missed payments they were able to repay within less than two weeks.
The biggest issue with Greece is scale. It is by far the IMF’s biggest debtor and that means the consequences of Athens missing payments could be enormous. At the end of March, the IMF said only €1.6bn from its members was more than six months in arrears.
Greece has drawn down almost €35bn from the IMF in two separate bailouts over the past five years. It is due to pay back €6.9bn over the rest of this year alone.
The IMF’s credibility would take a blow if Greece stopped paying it back . . .
The story of the IMF’s involvement in Greece has not been a happy one. Even before the current leftwing populist government took office it wasn’t hard to find senior officials at the IMF who would grumble about the Greek programme. Past internal reviews have identified plenty of mistakes in the first, 2010 bailout and the fund’s entire response to the eurozone crisis, including Greece, is now being examined again by the IMF’s internal watchdog.
But the programme has also been criticised for what some emerging nations argue was the special treatment that Greece received as a European economy rather than a developing one that the fund could push around.
At a time when the place in the global economy of the IMF and the World Bank are being challenged by new institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, backed by China, India and other big emerging economies, the case of Greece is an even more sensitive one.
“If there is a failure in the Greek case this to me will have a big impact on the credibility of the IMF,” says Andrea Montanino, a former IMF board member who now is at the Atlantic Council in Washington. “If Greece fails people will start questioning whether IMF policies really work . . . It is absolutely in the interest of the IMF that this does not happen.”
There may be a little wiggle room. Very little . . .
When Greece tested the waters earlier this year to see if it might be possible to reschedule some of its debt to the IMF, Christine Lagarde and the rest of the IMF’s leadership held the line. The IMF’s rules are not there to be broken. It also has a strict prohibition on lending to members in arrears and countries that miss a payment immediately lose access to IMF resources.
But that hard line masks a little wiggle room created by the IMF’s own procedures. Under the official timeline plan, it is not until a month after a missed payment that the managing director formally notifies the board and not until three months afterwards that a formal statement to the outside world is expected to be made.
Those kind of delays may matter to Greece and allow it to play the system as it negotiates with its creditors. Credit rating agencies have already said they would not immediately consider a missed payment to the IMF the trigger for a default. Moreover, Greece’s master agreement with the European Financial Stability Facility, the vehicle for its bailout from fellow EU members, specifically mentions the IMF managing director’s notification of the board, which would come a month after any errant payment, as the trigger for a default rather than the missed deadline itself.
Viewed one way, that means a missed payment from Greece could act as a way to “focus minds” in the negotiating room, says Nicolas Véron, a French economist now at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.
Then again those are all technicalities. The markets and what Greek people think are what really matters . . .
Greece is already frozen out of international capital markets. That’s why the IMF is there. But that does not mean that the markets do not matter. Their reaction the day after any missed payment will hold the real key.
“The whole world is looking at what Greece will do on May 12,” says Mr Montanino. “This is not about technicalities. This is about market reaction.”
Europe is badly split: Greek voters (and those of several other Eurozone members) are sick and tired of German imposed austerity; they want to let the "good times roll," again, on the naive assumption that money grows on (someone else's) trees. The Germans and Finns and a few others are equally determined to impose a bit of the good, old fashioned protestant work ethic on the idle Romans.
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E.R. Campbell said:
In large part this is the reason that Britain holds Gibraltar and the Royal Navy is in the Med: North African "interference" in European affairs.
Giles Milton in "White Gold: The Forgotten Story of North Africa's European Slaves" does a nice job of setting that stage. (Link)
Free-booters or pirates, under-employed sea-dogs, sea-beggars and privateers, that had profited nicely during the era of the protestant wars (1560 or so to 1648) moved away from civilization and headed for places like Port Royal in Jamaica. One place they found safe harbour was in North Africa amongst the Moors. The Sea-Beggars and the Dutch in general were so out of love with Rome that they often displayed the Moorish Crescent with the inscription "Better Turk than Catholic".
These folks combined with the local Muslims became the Barbary Pirates or Corsairs.
Spain had always been at war with Morocco - at least since Vandal times. Under the Habsburgs Spain continued with the war which had morphed into an anti-muslim reconquest of Spanish lands. But Spain could never dominate the Mediterranean, nor could any other nation. That left the place open for the Corsairs to raid all along the southern European coast for slaves.
From their safe havens the Corsairs, in particular the Sallee Rovers on the Moroccan Atlantic coast raided north into England, Ireland, Iceland and America looking for slaves. They ultimately got cheeky enough to lay up on Lundy Island off the north coast of Devon and raid on Bristol merchantmen. This was about 1625.
That presence and the slaving gave rise to the impetus behind Rule Britannia ("Britons never, never, never shall be slaves"), a popular desire for a Royal Navy to protect them, and all the Stewart's woes as they tried to raise taxes to support such a navy.
When the Bourbons took control of Spain from the Habsburgs in 1700 that is when Britain took direct control of Gibraltar from Spain, leaving Spain garrisoning the south side of the Straits of Gibraltar at Ceuta while Britain held the north side. The Brits then also managed to clean out Sale and Rabat on the Atlantic coast of Morocco. That helped to bottle up the Med and keep the corsairs tied up there.
The Bourbons, like the Protestant free-booters were just as likely to cut a deal with the Turks as they were to confront them.
This state of affairs continued from 1704 until 1805 when Nelson's victory over the Bourbon fleets at Trafalgar (now controlled by Napoleon) and the subsequent deposition of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815 effectively allowed the RN to turn the Med into a British lake.
The US Marines "Shores of Tripoli" incursion against slavery happened in 1805, just prior to the battle of Trafalgar.
The rule of the RN over the Med continued as a dominant feature of the Pax Britannica. Admiralty Law ruled the Med. Right up until end of World War 2 and the rise of the EU.
Now the Med seems to have reverted to "status quo ante" a lawless zone where the Euros on the north shore once again find themselves divided and conquerable from the sea.
If the EU wanted to do something concrete in both the immigration and the defence spheres then they could start by organizing a proper naval constabulary effort, perhaps modeled on their efforts off the Horn of Africa, and establish a forward control line 12 miles off the North African coast and keep slinging back the intruders onto the African continent. Set up camps on the African shore if they have to (although some would argue recolonization and internment camps).
The point of this tale is that the RN and Pax Britannica - detested as they were by the Europeans - resulted from Britons feeling that their neighbours weren't properly "mowing the lawn and keeping the weeds down". Apparently they still haven't figured out how to run a lawnmower.
And now they want to broadcast the weeds.
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Kirkhill said:
I have argued, elsewhere, that our (the US led West's) refugee policy is insane. Refugees, by definition, are fleeing their homes, fleeing for their very lives, to be sure, but above all, fleeing from home. And what is the defining characteristic of our homes? We all want to go back. And so do refugees. And they should be settled, temporarily, as close to their homes as safety allows ... neither Leiden nor Leicester are "close" to the Middle East or Africa.
Now, if we want to keep refugees close to their homes, so that they can return and take up their lives again, then we have to do two things:
1. Help countries like Jordan and Egypt and Morocco to cope with the flood of refugees ~ that will cost money; and
2. Help sort out the situations or regimes from which they are seeking refuge ~ that may involve sending troops and killing lots of folks, and that will cost money, too.
But the money spent dealing properly and responsibly with the refugee crisis is a small sum compared to the cost of integrating people that one would not, normally, ever consider accepting as immigrants. (I'm happy to concede that some refugees have done very, very well: European Jews in the 1940s and Vietnamese boat people in 1979/80 come to mind, but mostly, refugees are ill-prepared to be immigrants.)
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E.R. Campbell said:
And The Economist explains it, graphically:
Source: http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21650565-german-ordoliberalism-has-had-big-influence-policy-during-euro-crisis-rules-and-order?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/ed/ofrulesandorder
daftandbarmy
Army.ca Dinosaur
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E.R. Campbell said:And The Economist explains it, graphically:
Source: http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21650565-german-ordoliberalism-has-had-big-influence-policy-during-euro-crisis-rules-and-order?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/ed/ofrulesandorder
This iteration of the European experiment will ultimately fail, of course. Maybe the time is now?
"(A unified) 'Europe' is the result of plans. It is, in fact, a classic utopian project, a monument to the vanity of intellectuals, a programme whose inevitable destiny is failure: only the scale of the final damage done is in doubt." -- Margaret Thatcher
"The European single currency is bound to fail, economically, politically and indeed socially, though the timing, occasion and full consequences are all necessarily still unclear." -- Margaret Thatcher
"What we should grasp, however, from the lessons of European history is that, first, there is nothing necessarily benevolent about programmes of European integration; second, the desire to achieve grand utopian plans often poses a grave threat to freedom; and third, European unity has been tried before, and the outcome was far from happy." -- Margaret Thatcher
"(I)t is highly questionable whether when 'Europe speaks with one voice', as we are so often told it is doing, anyone is really listening. Europe's reputation as a serious player in international affairs is unenviable. It is a feeble giant who desperate attempts to be taken seriously are largely risible. It has a weak currency and a sluggish inflexible economy, still much reliant on hidden protectionism. It has a shrinking, ageing, population and, with the exception of Britain, rather unimpressive armed forces and, not excepting Britain, muddled diplomacy." -- Margaret Thatcher
http://www.margaretthatcher.tv/The_Best_Quotes.html
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Apparently, according to this article in the Globe and Mail, Greece dodged this bullet by using its IMF reserve fund for €650-million and used another €100-million from its own (scarce) cash to pay its loan to the IMF. But the bullets keep coming: government workers' salaries and more loans to be repaid and the IMF will insist that the €650-million, which is Greece's own money, be repaid into the IMF's cash reserves within a few weeks.
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The Financial Times has an interesting Greek Debt Tracking tool, here; it shows how bad things are going to get ... soon.
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Kirkhill said:
But he's really just paraphrasing Edmund Burke:
Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.
EDMUND BURKE, speech to the Electors of Bristol, Nov. 3, 1774
What Burke meant was that he did not need to come back to the electors to find out how they wanted him to vote. It was sufficient that they elected him, every few years, because they trusted his good judgment. It's why Preston Manning was wrong.
I know many, many people want their elected representatives to "consult" the people on every issue ... they're wrong, too.
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E.R. Campbell said:
I am not proposing that every vote be put to the people.
I am suggesting that within Europe (and elsewhere) there is a particular caste that sees public office as an opportunity to guide the unwashed.
Burke can be usefully quoted to support that type of politician as well.... the one man, one vote, one time sort.
I know that is not what Burke intended and I am a believer in Burkean politics. My problem is with the tendency amongst European politicians to do what is good for the people regardless of what the people think. Broken promises and ignored referenda.
Brad Sallows
Army.ca Legend
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The European establishment is just the other extreme: there was a vote, once, and they wish never to allow another to revisit the issue.
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Brad Sallows said:
Fair comment.
Which brings us back to the notion of governments binding future governments in the name of stability. However the lack of flexibility to accommodate a changing environment invariably (IMO) results in the eruption of revolutions at regular intervals.
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More on "the Greek question" in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Financial Times:
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/5d767052-fc9a-11e4-800d-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3aOCOZMqq
The Euro, and the whole philosophy of a united Europe upon which it rests are pretty close to be sacred in much of Europe and even the "responsible Europeans" (the Dutch, Germans, Finns) will fight hard to maintain the integrity of the Eurozone. That means they will bend and twist whatever rules are necessary to keep Greece "in" in the Euro.
But, if you look at the numbers, it's hopeless ... and it's equally hopeless, in the near to mid term, for Portugal, Spain, Italy and even France: they cannot (politically) be fiscally responsible, their voters will not accept it.
Right now 19 of the EU's 28 members are in the Eurozone; I think 10 to 15 ("responsible" nations) is about the right number, and that will include a few weak sisters. If the Euro can be made to work, for a decade, by ten, then expand to, one by one; 15, if fifteen can be made to work for another decade then expand again, one at a time ... be realistic.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/5d767052-fc9a-11e4-800d-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3aOCOZMqq
Tsipras letter reveals precariousness of Greece’s finances
Peter Spiegel, Brussels
May 17, 2015
Greece came so close to defaulting on last week’s €750m International Monetary Fund repayment that the prime minister warned IMF chief Christine Lagarde he could not pay it without EU aid.
Athens ultimately made the payment without financial assistance from the bloc but only by tapping a rarely used emergency account Greece holds at the fund — an unorthodox transaction that amounted to borrowing IMF funds to pay the IMF.
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Alexis Tsipras wrote to Ms Lagarde, warning that the IMF repayment would be missed unless the European Central Bank immediately raised its curbs on Greece’s ability to issue short-term debt.
The letter, first reported by the Greek daily Kathimerini but independently confirmed by the Financial Times, raises questions about how close Athens is to bankruptcy. In addition to payments due to the IMF next month totalling €1.5bn, the Greek government has struggled to meet its wage and pension bills, which must be paid at the end of the month.
The next €300m IMF payment is due on June 5.
Greece is locked in a four-month stand-off with bailout lenders over the release of €7.2bn in aid that Athens needs to pay looming bills.
Creditors will not disburse the tranche without agreement on Greek economic reforms.
The contents of the Greek prime minister’s letter were revealed by Ms Lagarde at a closed-door meeting of the fund’s board on Thursday.
According to officials briefed on the talks, Poul Thomsen, head of the IMF’s European department, warned the board that negotiations on the Greek economic reform package remained so unproductive that the fund could be forced to withhold its €3.6bn portion of the €7.2bn aid tranche.
Mr Thomsen insisted that the fund remained flexible on which reforms Athens needed to implement but told the board the programme must “add up” and begin lowering Greek debt to sustainable levels, officials said.
As a result, any watering down of Greece’s reform package or lowering its budget surplus targets — positions advocated in some eurozone capitals, including Brussels — might require the EU to consider writedowns on its bailout loans in order for the IMF to assent, Mr Thomsen told the board.
Officials said Ms Lagarde fully backed Mr Thomsen, telling staff that they should not proceed with a “quick and dirty” approval process.
“It’s clear that we are very far from something the IMF will be able to support without fundamentally breaking its own rules,” said one official briefed on the fund’s board discussion.
According to two officials briefed on the talks, at least one board member raised the possibility of presenting a “take it or leave it proposal” to Greece.
However, IMF staff said they still did not have enough data from Greek authorities to put together such a plan.
A similar tactic was used in March 2013, when the Cypriot government was presented with a severe bailout plan and told it must agree or lose ECB support for its failing banking sector.
The idea of a “Cyprus-like” presentation to Greek authorities has gained traction among some eurozone finance ministers, according to one official involved in the talks.
The official noted that the recent public backing by Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany’s finance minister, for a Greek referendum fits into such a scheme. Under this scenario, Mr Tsipras would take the bailout ultimatum to a nationwide vote for approval.
However, another official involved in the talks cautioned that a “take it or leave it” approach remained only one of many ideas being discussed informally as a way to finalise an agreement.
Additional reporting by Kerin Hope in Athens
The Euro, and the whole philosophy of a united Europe upon which it rests are pretty close to be sacred in much of Europe and even the "responsible Europeans" (the Dutch, Germans, Finns) will fight hard to maintain the integrity of the Eurozone. That means they will bend and twist whatever rules are necessary to keep Greece "in" in the Euro.
But, if you look at the numbers, it's hopeless ... and it's equally hopeless, in the near to mid term, for Portugal, Spain, Italy and even France: they cannot (politically) be fiscally responsible, their voters will not accept it.
Right now 19 of the EU's 28 members are in the Eurozone; I think 10 to 15 ("responsible" nations) is about the right number, and that will include a few weak sisters. If the Euro can be made to work, for a decade, by ten, then expand to, one by one; 15, if fifteen can be made to work for another decade then expand again, one at a time ... be realistic.
