The financial crises in Greece and Italy have some people predicting the collapse of the European Union. The Dutch Freedom Party has seized upon the uncertainty to reopen the question of whether the Netherlands should keep the euro or go back to the guilder.
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Of course the Euro will cease to exist. Wake up people, Civilization is crashing! You better take those euros, dollars etcetera and buy some usefull tools and items that will help you and your kids survive.
You can't have monetary union without fiscal union. The present mess just proves this. The fiscal mismanagement by a few nations has now messed up everyone who uses the same currency. Now all members of the "Euro club" have to bear the costs of someone else's incompetence. There is no way to bale out the insolvent nations short of printing money. Drop the Euro and bring back the Guilder!
The crisis Europe is facing sounds very similar to our crisis in the 1780's under the Articles of Confederation. We were a nation in name only and we had, in effect, thirteen ministates. Europe might want to consider a federal union and make the union stronger with an effective constitution.
The people that support the idea of two-tier Europe are similar to those people that say the US would be stronger if it was still divided between north and south before the civil war.
Recent events notwithstanding, the Eurozone and the Euro have been a major success. Trade within the EU improved to the point where the Union is a major player amongst the world's economies. Trade interdependence is partly responsible for the longest ever period of peace in Western European history.
Obviously Wilders is against it, but his gaze rarely reaches past his own navel.
'Eurozone and the Euro have been a major success' ... and prices (in some cases, more than) doubled virtually overnight. Not, of course salaries. The sad thing is that we all blindly accept it. I for one will continue to recalculate what I pay in euro's to what I should be paying in guilders('normal' increases accepted) just to remind myself how much we're being ripped-off.
The European Union is clearly not driving the longest ever period of peace in Europe, because the Union simply did not exist for the longer part of that period. The Union came about in 1992 and cannot possibly claim responsbility for peace in the decades before its existence.
If anything, the Union, and the shared currency as introduced later, put in jeopardy coooperation, stability and ongoing popular support for the European Union. The main benefits we see from the Union (bear in mind there was no Union until 1992) were available, to a large extent, under the European Community. The single market and practical cooperation where useful were really all that Europe needs as a baseline. The ongoing political integration, driven by ideological zeal, are doing more harm than good.
EuropeanPercentage of world trade has halved in ten years. Europe will decline as long as it continues to have ridiculous labour laws restricting hours of work and also bloated Welfare costs. The Euro will only be sustained by the Northern European states paying out huge sums to keep the other countries afloat , which will be a further tax on their economies making them even more uncompetitive. If Europe is to survive economically we must learn from the Far Eastern economies in terms of competitiveness and abandon the stranglehold of the enormous number of regulations imposed from Brussels. Taxes must be considerably lowered on companies and wages slashed if Europe wants to regain a larger percent of world trade.
I believe that it's better to have one's own currency and fix one's own problems without having to deal with others lack of financial discipline. Taking financial care of corrupt countries such as Greece and Italy is a risk.
It's better to deal with the problems one has and knows about than to be living blindfolded to the problems others can't solve for themselves.
My country. My economy. My currency.
Get out of the EU and drop the euro go back to the guilder.As a former dutch
resident I feel that the Dutch are catering to French and German governments
because they like to control the rest of Europe.Holland did fine till they entered the EU.
The EU/euro concept needs to be configured in a much more flexible way. The present rigidity threatens to take down all. It might work in good, prosperous time but not right now.
Nope, never ever. it would be a return to the past.
And that is a bad thing is it? If I had a choice between what is happening at the present moment in Europe and the past I would choose the past every time. A nations currency is a major part of it's identity, the guilder was part of the dutch fabric, it set us apart from other countries, it gave us a sense of independence. Please bring it back and get out of the Euro, give us back our independence.
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