A one currency is good on the whole, especially for those driving through multiple countries. They don't have to worry about exchange rates and have a pocket full of one currency.
As for Greece, it got itself into a real mess by giving high pay rises and cutting taxes to nearly nothing. You have no money coming in, and the piggy bank dries up.
- @SimCityAT
I'm not sure that facilitating the spending of itinerant drivers was a major factor in Bulgaria's decision to adopt the Euro...馃槑
The comment about Greece is both incorrect and misleading, at best. Yes, Greece did increase public-sector wages and pensions substantially in the 2000s, especially after joining the euro in 2001. Government spending rose faster than productivity or tax revenue. But 鈥渃utting taxes to nearly nothing鈥� isn鈥檛 accurate: Greece鈥檚 tax rates were not unusually low, in fact, VAT and income tax rates were comparable to those of other EU countries. The real problem was chronic tax evasion and inefficient tax collection, especially among high earners and self-employed professionals. The government simply wasn鈥檛 getting the revenue it was due.
Coupled with the poor rate of revenue collection, the cheap credit available after joining the euro allowed Greece to borrow heavily to finance budget deficits and public projects, often inefficiently - a hallmark of Greek governments in general
When the global financial crisis hit in 2008鈥�09, investors lost confidence in Greece鈥檚 ability to repay its debt and keep the speculators' own income streams buoyant. That triggered the sovereign debt crisis and the harsh austerity measures that followed.
The warnings that we individuals get about the value of our investments possibly going down rather than up - and too bad for us if they become worthless - don't apply to the very major financial institutions that issue those warnings to us. When they act like amateur speculators blinded by their own greed and suddenly realise they've vastly overexposed themselves, they place the financial systems of their home countries at risk. That's when the "Union" in EU is abandoned and it's "every man for himself" in the rush for the lifeboats and the ensuing search for a scapegoat to shoulder the entire blame.
Greece, and many other countries, couldn't meet the criteria for EU membership in the first place, but Brussels deliberately chose to turn a blind eye to what was patently obvious. They're still doing it to this day, when they line up a series of inefficient, skint and/or corrupt countries as candidates for membership, and retain others who are already members...
