December 11, 2011
More than once, the debt-burdened Greeks have heard how they should never have entered the single currency. And on the eve of Friday's make-or-break summit, as French President Nicolas Sarkozy warned that the euro was at risk of "disintegration", he repeated that there were "some" who should clearly not have joined the club.
Hours earlier, one of his predecessors, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, who will go down in history as doing more than anyone else outside of Athens to champion Greece's cause, came close to admitting the same thing. "Greece could stay in the eurozone but it is very difficult to achieve economic recovery with a strong currency," he said. "Is it better to use a national currency for a period, or have the safety of a strong currency?" he asked. "It is Greece's choice."
Speculation over Athens's possible exit from the eurozone is unlikely to end soon. Deutsche Bank experts predicted that a Greek departure from the 17-member bloc would continue to top the list of the 10 biggest risks investors should look out for. Greece was the 10th country to be embraced as a full member of the then European Economic Community (EEC) in 1981. The rationale behind its admission was as much romantic as geopolitical. As the birthplace of democracy and fount of European civilisation, France in particular felt that the organisation would be incomplete without Athens.
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