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The Eurozone situation would have presented an extreme moral hazard if the PIGS had been more generously bailed out with no drama. That's not to say the ECB was particularly intelligent about it or that the Germans and Dutch weren't largely responding to domestic populist demands to cut off those profligate mediterranneans, but if you look at the kind of fiscal climate you had in Italy or Spain during the early-2000s construction booms where like penniless teacher couples were being handed €3m loans to open their own hotel or whatever you can see that change was necessary. Monetary integration without fiscal integration is unustainable, people were rightfully angry that every Greek doctor was reporting an income of €12,000 a year and taking the rest tax-free in cash while Austrian and French doctors had to pay 40%+ tax rates on every penny they made above a low amount, there was a lot of built-up rage about it.
Agreed on all counts I think. But despite the rage and desire to punish, they did have to accept the economic reality and Draghi finally set it right in 2012 with the "whatever it takes" admission, which was correcting the first main issue. Then I think since covid and looking at the 15 years of poor growth, they've been coming around on the problems with deficit limits, which is the second big economic problem. These things reflect what necessary compromises had to be made 30 years ago to get buy-in, and what were the dominant narratives at the time (where central bankers and monetary policy were seen as sufficient wizardry to manage an economy).
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