INCONCEIVABLE!:

A new villain emerges in Europe: the euro (Floyd Norris, JUNE 8, 2005, International Herald Tribune)

Is the euro in danger of dying before it reaches its sixth birthday?

A suggestion by Italian cabinet ministers that their country should hold a referendum on getting out of the common currency drew denunciations from much of Europe as finance ministers met in Luxembourg on Tuesday, but the fact they were discussing the issue at all highlighted the fact that the currency is taking some of the blame for the Continent's economic woes.

Few, if any, think that the euro will stop being the legal currency of much of Europe, but with French and Dutch voters having stunned the political establishment by voting against the proposed European constitution, those who are opposed to other European institutions have been emboldened.

"It is just inconceivable that a country could envisage dropping out of the euro," said Jean-Claude Juncker, prime minister of Luxembourg and the current president of the European Union. "The euro belongs to us all."

Hans Eichel, the German finance minister, said the very idea of a country withdrawing was "nonsense," and Pedro Solbes, the Spanish economy minister, called the common currency "irreversible."

In Strasbourg, the new French foreign minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy, called the euro "a plus for today's European economies" and recalled the days before the currencies were unified, when interest rates in much of Europe were considerably higher than they are now, raising the cost of borrowing for European companies and governments.

"Do not call into question monetary Europe," he said

Could they sound any more like cultists?

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 8, 2005 8:42 AM