About 30 years ago the idea of the Economic Monetary Union was started on a French initiative. A plan was made to have a single currency across all EU member states – the Euro. The Germans quickly comprehended that they would be the ones to pay for this idea. They demanded that tight control with the public budget of the member states be put in place. The first was the Convergence Criteria, but that was not enough to satisfy the German mistrust in the effects of the system. They demanded more: the Stability and Growth Pact was the next step. In essence these two treaties abolish normal macro-economic tools: devaluation becomes impossible for countries implementing the Euro, and strict public austerity is imposed. Euro-countries are therefore unable to adjust their own economies if and when their experience recessive tendencies. The normal defence mechanisms against recession is ripped out of their hands when they join the Euro and accept the two treaties mentioned above. Their economy is bound to the German economy.
In 2008 a crisis started. A lot of especially Euro countries in the South and East were unable to counteract the recessive effects of this crisis, especially Spain, Greece and Italy, but also several East-European countries. They were forced to immerse themselves heavily into debt, for some more that 100% of their GDP.
The crisis of 2008 is not over for these countries but now another crisis har hit – the corona crisis, putting an even heavier burden on these economies. The wonderful helpfulness of their EU partners is demonstrated blatantly: they will be helped by the EU, but only as increased debt burden. While still fighting the 2008-crisis they must now fight both these crisis as if there was only one crisis: the cEUROna-crisis. They will not be allowed to break the rules and use the normal macro-economic tools to rebuild their economies. They will not be allowed to fight unemployment by increasing public investments in job creation, and they will not be allowed to devalue their own Euro, so that they could improve their competitiveness – that would threaten German dominance. Germany and France both break these rules constantly, but others will be hindered in doing so for any extended period of time.