The euro crisis and its lessons from a Greek perspective

Athanasios Thanos Skouras

Society and Economy, 2013, vol. 35, issue 1, 51-69

Abstract: In the aftermath of the Lehman Brothers collapse, Germany’s insistence that each country was to defend its banking system on its own rather than by the European Union acting jointly, is what triggered the euro crisis. This made it inevitable that the weakest countries with the least healthy public finances would sooner or later come under attack. It is argued that the root of the crisis is not excessive sovereign debt but the deficient construction of the euro and, more specifically, the absence of a common treasury. The main lessons of the crisis are briefly presented, and a less evident lesson, at least for economists, is discussed at length. This is that national pride and prejudice can influence the unfolding of events in uncertain and dangerous ways that do not make rational sense. In the concluding sections, the present state of the crisis and the future prospects for Europe are examined and, finally, Greece’s future is assessed in the light of this analysis.

Keywords: crisis; European Union; debt; policy making; prejudice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E65 F36 G01 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
Note: I would like to thank Prof. E. Zalai for the invitation to give a talk on this topic at Corvinus University of Budapest on October 18, 2012, the outcome of which is the present paper.
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