Europe, the euro and Britain

A 20-euro note folded into the shape of a shirt
Points of viewThe euro tied together countries that would not share a budget, and Europe has been paying for that mistake ever since.

I grew up in Germany, worked in Britain and covered the euro crisis for Australian readers in a weekly column from 2010 to 2016. These are the convictions that came out of those years.

Core beliefs

Those who spend must also pay

Joint debt breaks the link between the governments that spend and the taxpayers who pay. During the euro crisis, Germany and the fiscally conservative north blocked it every time.

The pandemic broke the taboo when EU leaders borrowed €800 billion together, supposedly as a one-off. Joint borrowing has since become routine, and in 2026 even the Bundesbank called for more of it.

Read: EU is ignoring economics 101: those who spend must also pay (Newsroom, 2026)

Integration needs consent

The European Union embarked on a project of political integration for which there was never much popular appetite. Its leaders are distant, and voters cannot remove them. That democratic deficit is the soil in which Europe’s populists grow.

Read: Why Europe Failed (book, 2015)

Europe’s deeper problem is decline

Europe’s debts are only the tip of the iceberg. Its population is ageing and shrinking, government spending has reached levels never seen before and it has struggled to integrate migrants from other cultures. The continent that invented the modern world is gambling away its future.

Read: Europe’s Painful Farewell: An Essay on the Decline of the Old World (report, 2010)

Brexit was a question of liberty

I never pretended that leaving would be easy, and I spelled out the risks and side-effects of a British withdrawal. But the EU’s anti-democratic nature weighed more heavily. In 2016, I concluded that the democratic case for leaving outweighed the economic risks.

Read: Brexit is a question of liberty (Insights, 2016)

Europe must be able to defend itself

Europe’s security rested on the assumption that America would always defend it. By 2024, that could no longer be taken for granted. Europe has to rearm, but funding defence through borrowing that erodes fiscal discipline creates a new crisis while trying to fix an existing one.

Read: Europe is now on its own (Newsroom, 2024)

How I came to this

My doubts about the euro began at university in Bochum, where professors in my faculty petitioned against its introduction. When I moved to London in 2004, I learned how differently the British and the Germans thought about the European project. At Policy Exchange, Europe was a subject we avoided, because David Cameron wanted his party to stop “banging on” about it.

In 2008, I moved to Sydney. In 2010, Alan Kohler, the founding editor of Business Spectator, offered me a weekly column on the euro crisis for as long as it lasted. I wrote almost 300. I also got things wrong. In 2011, I wrote that the euro in its current form would be history within months. It survived because the European Central Bank and Europe’s governments were willing to bend every rule to save it.

In 2015, I gathered my arguments in a short book, Why Europe Failed, published by Connor Court in association with The New Zealand Initiative.

  1. 2004I move to London.
  2. 2010Europe’s Painful Farewell describes the decline of the Old World.
  3. 2011I predict that the euro in its current form will be gone within months. I am wrong.
  4. 2012Faraway, So Close explains what the euro crisis means for Australia.
  5. 2015Why Europe Failed is published.
  6. 2016Britain votes to leave the European Union.
  7. 2017Roger Partridge and I tell the Adam Smith Institute in London what an independent Britain can learn from New Zealand.
  8. 2020Britain leaves. EU leaders borrow €800 billion together for a recovery fund.
  9. 2026The Bundesbank calls for more joint European debt.

What happened next

The euro survived, kept alive by the European Central Bank’s bond buying and successive rescues. Its design flaws remain. Joint debt, once taboo, has become routine, and the Bundesbank, once the fiercest opponent of pooling debt, has switched sides.

Britain left the European Union in January 2020. It has its independence back, and with it the responsibility for its own mistakes.

Reports

Cover of Europe's Painful FarewellEurope’s Painful Farewell2010 Cover of Faraway, So CloseFaraway, So Close2012 Cover of Why Europe FailedWhy Europe Failed2015 Cover of What an Independent Britain Can Learn from New ZealandWhat an Independent Britain Can Learn from New Zealand2017

In my own words

“I have always sided with the sceptics, not out of hostility to European integration but because I believe much of the enthusiasts’ agenda is practically impossible.”

EU is ignoring economics 101, Newsroom, 24 February 2026

“The referendum’s real question is whether in its current state the EU is a club that freedom-loving democrats happily want to belong to.”

Brexit is a question of liberty, Insights, 17 June 2016

“The European project never had a reverse gear.”

The Brexit precedent, National Business Review, 2 February 2020

Watch

The end of EU-rope?, The New Zealand Initiative, Wellington, 17 February 2016 · Watch on YouTube

Start here

Insights · 17 June 2016

Brexit is a question of liberty

The referendum’s real question is whether in its current state the EU is a club that freedom-loving democrats happily want to belong to.

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