La Batalla del Evro
X. Vidal-Folch, El País
February 18 2010

The thrilling battle of the Euro goes on, amid Greek crisis and historical distrust. Even those in favour of a strongly integrated economic area thought the prospect of a single currency implausible, until Canadian Nobel-winner Robert Mundell (Plan for a European Currency, 1970) launched the possibility. Today another Nobel, Paul Krugman, says the problem of the Euro is not Greece but the pride and haste with which the currency was created before the continent was ready. As though to say: Karamanlis is not to blame, but Kohl, Delors, Mitterrand, González. What haste, one also wonders, given the thirty years or so it took between the first Wermer Plan in 1970 and adoption of the Euro? Nor should one forget that the European Central Bank arose along with the single currency, whereas the United States waited until 1923 to have the Federal Reserve. However, that we lack a Treasury, a Budget, a truly common fiscal policy or an emergency fund is not pride but negligence. The triumph of the Euro, now second world currency neck and neck with the dollar, is shown by the howls in certain Anglo-Saxon quarters that Greece be expelled and affiliated to the IMF, a step which would certify the demise of the European Union. The Treaty sanctions “salvaging” countries in difficulty via “Union financial aid”. Such ‘quarters’ cite the fears of German contributors incensed at these southern wastrels, in this case Greeks; but the fears are groundless: to Germany the Euro is but the Mark in “world panoramic screen version.