The End of the Euro?

One of the latest books I currently read is The End of the Euro - The Uneasy Future of the European Union by Johan Van Overtveldt, former editor in chief of Belgium's Trends and currently Minister of Finance.

The chapters of the book feature a quite detailed narration of history of the European Economic Community (EEC) which brings us to today's woes over a possible Brexit and Greece's unsustainable debt. This social and economic distress, also spotted in other EU countries, is continued due to a central monetary policy that does not walk in line with a political union and general policies between the members states, that could optimize the EU system. Some parts of the book I particularly distinguished as they can shed some light on Greece's ongoing economic problems and why the current or past governments were unable to really change the course of the real economy or fantasized that they can by imposing more taxes & austerity.

The author argues something which many people haven't really realized. When Greece's ex-Prime Minister, George Papandreou, publicly admitted that Greece's deficit is much bigger than what the previous government had announced, this triggered the beginning not only of the Greek crisis, but the European economic crisis and sent shivers to the markets. It is now widely known that Goldman Sachs had assisted one of the previous governments to ''cook'' Greece's deficit and debt to GDP ratio to appear at the desired level set by the European Central Bank back then. Trust was lost.

At these times, it is also important to remember why the EU was built. To avoid any more wars that have shed too much blood in the past century. Current nationalistic incidents & instincts caused by the refugee crisis, will prevent the optimization of EU's economic system and isolationism will prevail. You can't only push countries like Greece to reform their domestic systems. If EU wants to survive, its politicians should stop fearing  & blaming the markets, but  try to understand them instead. Solidarity is also critical because solidarity provided debt relief for Germany after WWII. It is absolutely grotesque why EU does not accept a debt relief for Greece on the base of strict reforms for its economy. 

If Britain leaves EU and Greece follows, we might as well see history repeating itself. 

The End of the Euro on amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/End-Euro-Uneasy-Future-European/dp/193284161X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1465226117&sr=8-1&keywords=the+end+of+euro

Official website:
http://vanovertveldt.belgium.be/en/home