Michael Portillo on the euro crisis

Raleigh Addington
Raleigh Addington
editor at Chartwell Speakers

If you can, do try and find time to watch Michael Portillo’s ‘Great Euro Crisis‘ on BBC iplayer. Michael, a “self confessed eurosceptic”, visits Greece and Germany in a bid to understand where the current crisis will end, and whether there is any appetite for a return to national currencies. In Athenian soup kitchens and on picket lines you get a troubling sense of what austerity actually means for Greeks caught out by unemployment and shrinking welfare provision. But none of the Greeks Michael spoke to wanted to swap the euro for the drachma, believing that it promised better government and prosperity in the longer term. Less surprisingly, the German workers on the Porsche assembly line were also committed to the currency zone; though another group of Germans were angry about the bail-outs for Greece. It can’t work for everyone, and it will dilute national democracy, are Michael’s conclusions. Or do the Brits just not get it? The clock is ticking.

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