Do you think the Eurozone will collapse?
- Yes
- No
- Partially (i.e. some countries will have to abandon the Euro)
- I don’t know
0 voters
I would be grateful if you could tick one option in the Poll.
Voted yes, if the euro starts to crack the markets will keep attacking the weakest link until it is all gone.
Voted partially. Some countries almost certainly means us. It will be disasterous for Ireland if/when it comes to pass though.
edit. Constantin tweets a mushroom cloud.
Voted no. The powers of the EU will be restructured though.
Partially. As mentioned above, there will be severe restructuring first.
Italy will remain, Greece will leave.
Spain and Portugal are joined at the hip - if one leaves the other will too.
The common market will remain.
Ireland will become a de facto Sterling protectorate. Sterling may eventually be tied to the Euro, either formally or informally.
France, Germany, Benelux and Italy will form a political or at least tax/finance union.
Eurobonds may be issued but only for capital projects which will be overseen from Germany.
The deal has already been done anyway - Germany will run the Euro economy, France will run Euro foreign policy and the UK will control the Euro military; doesnt matter who the minister or commissioner is, this is the way things will be done.
Once this is sorted, conflict with Russia is inevitable.
I voted yes, I think that the EU will reinvent itself back into the EEC and concentrate on it’s core objectives of mutual trade and stability.
The global growth model that the Euro was supposed to operate in no longer exists, we are approaching a period of global stagnation because of resource depletion and local growth on one place will be matched by decline elsewhere.
European countries can no longer afford the overheads that the EU cost.
You know what that such a wonderfully worded insight and so bleedin’ obvious too! 
Voted partially for now… on current information… but every day is a new dawn, a new day… a new fudge…
It’s quite scary to know that so many just don’t get that simple concept and are waiting for growth to return!
It’s probably fairer to say that many don’t believe that concept – they think it’s simplistic, not simple. Only the peak oil doomers and their ilk can look at a decade of out-of-control credit and imagine that the well-documented, well-analysed consequences are actually the result of resource depletion.
Thing is though, if resources were not in limited supply, then their prices should be on the floor by now due to the lack of growth, but they’re not.
Natural gas is cheaper than it has been for almost all of the 2000s (except 2002). Uranium is cheaper than it was 30-40 years ago. Which resources are you looking at?
Principally oil, as it’s one of the primary resources, many other resources need oil powered machinery to extract them.
Then I suppose we better start using less of that and more of the other stuff. Happening already, though – US oil consumption is down 1.5 million barrels in 5 years, UK oil use dropped 5% in 2010 over 2009, even though they used more total energy. Of course, as western oil consumption drops, the slack is taken up in the developing economies, so there isn’t any diminution in prices. But there is scope for vast oil reductions if there is either the political will or a strong enough price signal. The US uses twice as much oil per capita as the UK. In fact, it uses more than any other country except the big oil producers. Saudi Arabia uses 66% more oil per capita than the US. In fact, the big oil producers who subsidise domestic oil prices are far and away the most profligate users of oil per capita. That gives you some idea what needs to happen to reduce consumption. So the main problem right now is that oil is, relatively speaking, still ridiculously cheap.
The US (& Canada) is more than capable of becoming self sufficient in oil if they had the political will to make the necessary reductions in consumption.
Europe on the other hand is “over a barrel” due to it becoming ever more reliant on imports, another headache for the Euro.
I don’t see “collapse” as a likley option, yes there is a chance, but IMHO, it is slim.
Greece may ‘choose’ to leave; but they should never have been let into the Euro in the first place as their economy had never been close to converging by any metrics.
A EuroArea with closer fiscal alignment backed up with tigher controls and penalties for breaches would allow for centralised borrowing (aka Euro Bonds) and a potentially more stable future. However, just remember that apart from the Greeks, who never got their fiscal act together, with was German, France and Italy who merrily stomped all over the restrictions fo the Stability and Growth Pact by breaching the 3% borrowing rules before the wheels fell off the global economic waggon.
For the system to work, there needs to be oversight and real ‘teeth’ for those charged with regulating the system
Blue Horseshoe
Went for partial.
But i guess i think its all only buying time anyway. Even if there is closer integration and euro bonds whats to stop markets going after the euro bonds on the basis of their joint debts to GDP? And who will oversee that the new rules are really stuck to? i.e how long before they are forgotten and thrown out similar to the GSP
Went for Don’t know.
You can change your vote retrospectively, by the way.
Also, even though I started the poll, I cannot see who voted, so feel free to express your opinion and to subsequently modifiy it.