The sterling wisdom of David Owen
Although David Owen (now Lord Owen) was a strong supporter of Britain's membership of the EU, he opposed some of the more radical proposals for integration. As the co-leader of the "No to the euro" campaign with "Business for Sterling", which ended when the British Government declared in 2005 that euro membership was off the table, Owen came to echo Winston Churchill: "But we have our own dream and our own task. We are with Europe, but not of it. We are linked but not combined. We are interested and associated but not absorbed."
Locking European countries with completely different structures into a single currency was a recipe for disaster, Owen contended, and so it has come to pass. And now? Well, if deficit eurozone countries, like Greece and Ireland, cannot devalue, the onus must surely on surplus countries, like Germany, to reduce exports, expand demand, cut taxes or transfer capital, but as Jack Ewing pointed out on Friday in the New York Times, that would be punishing the thrifty and industrious to support to squanderers and indolent. Won't work.
Moral of story: Keep your own currency.
