Our politicians in Brussels are more worried about the image damage to the euro as the amount of debt Greece has.
Im more concerned about the eastern european states that some day might want the euro? We must look 3 times at any furthre canidate who wants to join the euro.
It can be a advantage for both us and them if they dont accept the euro. They can devalue there currency if needed, or pile up more debt if desired and still sell there products to us. They are not less european if they keep there currency. Look at Britian, Norway, Switzerland and Denmark. They are all doing fine.
Norway has oil.. lots of oil. It has also been wise and saved up for its people so it today has the second biggest sovereign wealth fund and made a "killing" during this crisis. Norway has no need for now at least to be part of anything. Norway is probably the most healthy (economically) nation on the planet.
The Swiss. They have a banking system that rivals the City of London and of course are big in pharma. They have also always been on the outside due to their some time fanatical nationalism and independence demands. This is one of the reason the Swiss only joined the UN a few decades ago. Point is they have no need for the EU or anyone else and it has always been like that.
Now the Danes. Yes they voted to stay outside the Euro, but that was based on ignorance and fearmongering by the anti-EU morons. Their main argument against the Euro... the coins could not have the head of the Danish Queen on them... which they of course could but that was enough. Fast forward almost 2 decades and more and more people are calling Denmark to enter the Eurozone.. including those that use to be against it. And the reason is very simple.. our biggest markets are in the Euro zone.
Oh and the Danish Kroner has been pegged to the Euro since the Euros creation and it has not budged much. So all this has meant, is an cost increase for Danish companies and less of transparency on prices. That is why Coca Cola can mark up a bottle of Coke by insane amounts in Denmark without it being so obvious.
We also went through our "crisis" in the late 1970s/early 1980s, and we learned from it and this crisis has so far not made unemployment shoot up or the budget deficit go nuts. In fact Denmark barely had negative growth last I looked, and that was only due to Germany tanking a bit. Believe me, Denmark was far worse off than Greece in 1979.. we were a wisker away from defaulting thanks to the Social Democrats. But thanks to the Conservative-Liberal alliance we got out of the hole with austerity measures that in many ways make the Greek measures look like childsplay.
And Britain.. of the 4 mentioned.. is in a so big hole at the moment that it rivals the hole the UK was in before it joined the EEC back in the day. But the government and the opposition is still in denial and unwilling to take the action needed to get out of the hole, so the pain will be hard and long for the UK as it stands now.
It is ironic, that the British budget deficit is far larger than that of Greece and there is no plans what so ever to bring it down. Sure their over all debt load is still relatively low but it is climbing fast.. very fast. From being around 40% only a few years ago to start pushing the 90% mark in the next few years.
I am not saying joining the Eurozone will help or make it worse, but what I do find funny is the amount of "hate" coming from Brits towards the Eurozone ... when they first off are not in the Eurozone and secondly are no thinking of joining ever.. so why all the hate and bother about it
