Business Spectator

Regardless of his actual reasons, Oettinger was simply right in his analysis – as indeed evidenced by the Commission’s very own policy recommendations to member states. Europe needs major reforms to get its existential problems under control.

If you really can’t help yourself and desperately yearn for a currency union between Australia and New Zealand against all odds, then at least you should also include Papua New Guinea. Simply because every failing monetary union deserves its Greece.

Whether there have to be single-use oil canisters on European restaurant tables or not may not be the biggest question for the world economy today. But to watch the European Union dealing with it in such an overly-bureaucratic way, one may well be concerned for the future of the European economy – not just in olive-growing countries.

If I were a cynic, I would now be predicting the next European bailout recipient. And the winner is… Slovenia! But how would I know?

This euro crisis is more than just a monetary crisis. It is way deeper than that. It really is just another episode in the epic battle of government against the markets. Typically it’s the markets that win in the long run.

The Bundesbank and the German constitutional court are confronting and challenging the ECB, and such a conflict cannot just be moderated away. Eventually, the Germans will need to come clear on where they want to take the eurozone.

At the moment, the only countries able to function with the euro are those of the healthier euro core. They should allow the other eurozone members to depart from monetary union. Otherwise we will never be able to see some actual green shoots in Europe.

Despite having some of the world’s greatest companies, Europeans still wonder what these have ever done for them. They will find out the answer the day that some of these despised corporates decide to get out of anti-corporate Europe.