The Eurozone was never intended to do the damage it has done to PIGS economies but it has. What is worse, is that it has unquestionably been of benefit to Germany, which has one of the strongest hands in shaping the future of the EU.
If a macroeconomist had sat down to devise a currency that suffocated Italy, Portugal, Greece and Spain - export driven economies (remember that tourism is an export as you have to buy the local currency to obtain the 'goods'), and benefited Germany (an economy with an export sector that would normally be severely impacted by a strong services sector's drive to increase the value of the currency) - they couldn't have done much better than the current Eurozone setup.
Arguably we need more currencies in the world, not fewer. Economic homogeneity across an entire nation state can only reasonably expected with small countries (and remember that the Italian Republic is a very new country cobbled together out of provinces, often with significantly different economies.)
Left to float independently, the Deutschmark would not be as low as the Euro is today and the Lira would never be as high.
If a macroeconomist had sat down to devise a currency that suffocated Italy, Portugal, Greece and Spain - export driven economies (remember that tourism is an export as you have to buy the local currency to obtain the 'goods'), and benefited Germany (an economy with an export sector that would normally be severely impacted by a strong services sector's drive to increase the value of the currency) - they couldn't have done much better than the current Eurozone setup.
Arguably we need more currencies in the world, not fewer. Economic homogeneity across an entire nation state can only reasonably expected with small countries (and remember that the Italian Republic is a very new country cobbled together out of provinces, often with significantly different economies.)
Left to float independently, the Deutschmark would not be as low as the Euro is today and the Lira would never be as high.