Foto: AFP/LETA
Watching eurozone politicians' recent dithering has not been pretty and hearing ECB officials speak of Greece not being bankrupt sounds weird so I guess it is not strange that some have started writing about a breakup of the eurozone.
This is easy and possibly appeals to many but every time one thing is missing: How to engineer this breakup and reintroduce national currencies? It is not so strange that this element is missing for, as far as I see it, it is close to impossible to break up the eurozone. Adopting the euro is a one-way street - there is no turning back, which of course offers implications for Latvia whose goal it is to adopt the euro by 2014.
Here is how I see it. Imagine some representative Greek person: Someone with an income in euros, a small pot of savings in euros in a Greek bank and a mortgage loan in euros and from his Greek bank. Creating the euro was the biggest monetary logistical operation in history as a lot of paper currency and coins had to be printed and distributed, accounting procedures in companies had to be changed to euros, financial contracts had to be rewritten in terms of euros at the irrevocably established conversion rates, vending machines and parking meters had to be fitted to accept euros etc etc.
