CRISIS/ What will happen to the Eurozone

Tomorrow in Brussels, a two-day summit of the European Council will convene to examine the situation in the Eurozone and the possible solutions to the crisis that beset it. The decisions about the fate of the euro, however, seem to remain strongly in the hands of Nicolas Sarkozy and, above all, Angela Merkel. The latter, in fact, increasingly leads the Franco-German directorate of Europe and does not seem willing to make concessions to anyone. In fact, as Joachim Starbatty, Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Tubingen, explains, “Germany is not responsible for the difficulties of individual countries".

The Eurozone seems to be in trouble in this period. Do you think the euro will survive?
There is a fracture in the monetary union of Europe between, on the one side, the six "Triple A" countries: Germany, Finland, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Austria, and then, on the other side, the remaining countries. Of these other countries, three have already had to seek refuge in the rescue fund: Greece, Ireland and Portugal, and one can expect Spain and Italy to follow. Thus, the rescue fund will be insufficient, even after its increase. The consequence is that the euro will only partially survive if the "Triple A" countries leave.

Do you think that the problems with the euro began with the Greek question, or were there already errors in the birth of the single currency?
The difficulties that the debtor countries are having arose while they were part of the Eurozone. If they had stayed out of the euro, they would have had to pay higher interest rates, there would have been no housing bubble and they would have been able to depreciate in proportion to their declining ability to compete. In 1995, before the monetary union, Italy had a market share of 6.5% of world trade, a figure that was reduced to 2.8% in 2010. Thus, they have also lost many jobs in exporting firms.

What do you think about the hypotheses advanced in the last few days to help resolve the crisis, including reforming the role of the ECB, Eurobonds, the intervention of the IMF, and European Union-wide taxation. Do you think there are other ways?