Sorry for no blogging on Friday due to a visit to North Wales, but I was keeping up with the news all the same and came across an article in the Business section of the Telegraph. It reported that the European Central Bank (ECB) has cut interest rates to 2 per cent as it tries to cope with the global downturn in business.
The ECB President, Jean-Claude Trichet commented that the cut follows a "very significant slowing down of the economy". As the Telegraph reported, it is an admission that Europe is heading into the worst recession since the Second World War.
It makes you wonder how the pressures of this severe recession will affect the eurozone with its diverse economies. There is no way the ECB can get the interest rate right for many of the nations at any given time and countries such a Germany and France will always get priority, whilst many of the old Eastern bloc nations will just have to put up with the problems of an interest rate that may be too high or too low. That may be bad enough in good times, but spells disaster in times of great economic stress.
The EU's currency will come under great stress in 2009, the states of the economy could be the beginning of the end for the euro. Britain really is better off out of the euro.
No comments:
Post a Comment