Abandon currency!

Former chancellor Nigel Lawson was in entertaining form this morning discussing the current EU economic mess, though it did sound as if he’d been celebrating too early. The ‘solution’ wasn’t so much for Greece to abandon the euro, but for the EU to abandon its dream of a single currency. As he put it, monetary union requires fiscal union; and fiscal union would require political union, something most Europeans don’t want.

I remember several occasions when people voted “No” and were ignored; in the case of Denmark threatened with the consequences and told to vote again, presumably as often as needed to produce the ‘right’ result. I can easily imagine many wanting monetary union, but not the foundations required to make it work. Just as I continue to find it difficult to square the Liberal Democrats championing of local democracy, whilst pushing for deeper European integration; and if this doesn’t mean political union, what does it mean?