Eurozone Debt Crisis: Ex Greek Finance Minister Warns "Europe's North-South Divide Has Become A Time Bomb"

Hello folks, the Fed tapering program is coming soon, US economic is starting to recover, how about Eurozone? ,As the eurozone debt crisis has steadily widened the divide between Europe's stronger northern economies and the weaker, more debt-laden economies in the south (with France a kind of no man's land economy in between), one question is on everyone's mind: Can Europe's monetary union – indeed, the European Union itself – survive?

While the eurozone's northern members enjoy low borrowing costs and stable growth, its southern members face high borrowing costs, recession, and deep cuts in incomes and social spending. They have also suffered substantial output losses, and have far higher unemployment rates than their northern counterparts.

For example, Unemployment in the eurozone as a whole averages about 12%, compared to more than 25% in Spain and Greece (where youth unemployment now stands at 60%). Indeed, while aggregate per capita income in the eurozone remains at 2007 levels, Greece has been pushed back to 2000 levels, and Italy today finds itself somewhere in 1997.

How important is it..., Europe's southern economies owe their deteriorating circumstances largely to excessive austerity and the absence of measures to compensate for demand losses.

Currency devaluation – which would boost the competitiveness of domestic industry by lowering export prices – obviously is not an option in a monetary union

Source: Authored by Yannos Papantoniou (Greece's Economy & Finance Minister 1994 to 2001), originally posted at Project Syndicate
thanks and regards
@frengersattack