The article “The Ticking Euro Bomb: How a Good Idea Became a Tragedy” on «The Spiegel» explain the recent history of the euro simply and accurate. The article shows the principal ideas of the leaders: “The Maastricht Treaty, which marked the establishment of the European Union when it was signed in 1992, made it all possible. It placed Europe on «three columns,» the first of which was an economic column, complete with an «Economic and Monetary Union.» The treaty provided the necessary legal framework, so that a common financial policy would have been conceivable, as would a coordinated fiscal and interest-rate policy. But the political will to fill out the Maastricht framework was missing.” And why they decided to admit Greece or Portugal or Ireland in the EU. (4)
But the idea of the “United States of Europe” is much older; Roman Empire was the first attempt to make it possible and they achieved in part. Later Napoleon Bonaparte (5) had the same dream and also Adolf Hitler (6) with his twisted mind tried to rule Europe.
Although it was in 2000 when Europeans thought they would become stronger than China or USA. «The Telegraph» started an article with “Europe’s growth ‘to accelerate past America” (7) at the end of it a European citizen could march with the sound of Beethoven’s 5th symphony echoed in his ears . What have happened? Where is all of that? Weren’t we the same European nation with little differences? Wouldn’t we be working side by side forever? Reality hit us really hard in 2007, what we were dreaming for a long time was melted like a candle. The crisis took off like a rocket, fast and unstoppable, and then government mistakes, market mistakes and people mistakes started to emerge. That was the time when Europe should have been stronger than never, but it hesitated and in economy a second of hesitation means bankruptcy. It is true that there was not much room to make a U turn because the great dependency of the local governments and house economies of banks or markets. But this is not an excuse, Europe was shocked during the most important moments and events; reality usually moves faster that bureaucracy.
The headlines of the newspapers began to change, where you could read articles in 1999 like one on «The Economist» : “The hot spots are four countries on the periphery of the euro area—Finland, Ireland, Portugal and Spain—which are growing much faster than France, Germany and Italy.” (8) And “There are reasons for optimism. Inflation is below 2% in all the fringe economies except Spain. There it has risen to 2.4%, mainly because of higher oil prices.” You read on the same paper in 2008: “Too good to last […] Spain’s growth was only 1.2%, making this its weakest quarter for over a decade.” (9)
The prices went up rapidly and economies went down fast. Unemployment rate and inflation reached unexpected figures. The crisis was here to stay for a long time; first hitting Ireland and Portugal but it was tackled rapidly and in somehow efficiently, then it came Greece and everything seemed to fall down. Even «The Spiegel» started an article with: “The German government has been simulating a range of scenarios to prepare for a possible exit of Greece from the euro zone. Under a worst-worst-case scenario, the country could descend into a vicious circle of misery that could last decades.” (10)
From since then, the crisis has spread all over the euro-zone, but who was playing the game which brought us to the worst worldwide crisis in modern history?