We need to admit the euro was a mistake - Hungarian central bank governor calls for an exit mechanism
Two decades after the euro’s launch, most of the necessary pillars of a successful global currency — a common state, a budget covering at least 15-20 per cent of the eurozone’s total gross domestic product, a eurozone finance minister and a ministry to go with the post — are still missing.
We rarely admit the real roots of the ill-advised decision to create the common currency:
it was a French snare. As Germany unified, François Mitterrand, then French president, feared growing German power and believed convincing the country to give up its Deutschemark would be enough to avoid a German Europe.
The chancellor of the time, Helmut Kohl, gave in and considered the euro the ultimate price for a unified Germany.
Gyorgy Matolcsy FT 3 November 2019
We rarely admit the real roots of the ill-advised decision to create the common currency:
it was a French snare. As Germany unified, François Mitterrand, then French president, feared growing German power and believed convincing the country to give up its Deutschemark would be enough to avoid a German Europe.
The chancellor of the time, Helmut Kohl, gave in and considered the euro the ultimate price for a unified Germany.
Gyorgy Matolcsy FT 3 November 2019
The euro was not a German project. Quite the reverse. German voters wanted to hold on to their currency. The euro was the price Helmut Kohl paid to Mitterrand to win his blessing for reunification.
Philip Stephens, Financial Times 18 April 2013
In Strasbourg on Dec. 9, 1989, after the Berlin Wall fell, Germany agreed to monetary union in order to get President Mitterand to agree to German reunification
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