Pigs frighten the swineherd

The eurozone has proven to be what many feared, a disaster waiting to happen.  The admission criteria were applied too flexibly and countries which should never have been permitted to join nevertheless were welcomed.  Without fiscal and thereby political union the eurozone was bound to fall into chaos .  If ever the political elite created a fiasco, the eurozone is it.

Of course the swineherd, the European Commission, was playing the long game.   As treaty after treaty has bled sovereignty away from nation states, as the European Union set up its own diplomatic corps, a de facto European state entity was being created.  All it lacked was fiscal power to raise direct taxes and thereby political power.  The policy was a simple and effective one, gain power by a slow process of creep.  Along the way nervous electorates were either ignored or told to vote again should they have the temerity to disagree with Brussels.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your viewpoint, the whole process has been blown out of the water by economic crisis in the PIIGS: Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain.  The people in these nations have realised that the price of being in the eurozone is dictat from Germany.  The European Central Bank and the eurozone is dependent on the German economy to bail it out.  Unfortunately the Germans do not see it that way.  Saddled with the legacy of the unified Germany the German people are hostile to subsiding the soft under-belly of the eurozone.  See:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/8703147/Germanys-Angela-Merkel-faces-eurobond-mutiny.html

France, for so long the junior partner in the Franco-German axis which determines EU policy has problems of its own as its banking system is awash with  sovereign debt of some of the PIIGS.

Soon it will be decision time.  The eurozone in its current form is doomed, the only question is what will follow its demise?  Will it be a split of the zone into two?  Presumably, if this is the course of action, France, Germany, Netherlands and possibly one or two other countries may move to fiscal and political union, but I wouldn't bet on it. 

Whatever happens there will be a two tier, possibly even a three tier EU, the two groups from the current eurozone and the countries not in the eurozone.  Can the EU survive in such a two-ringed or three-ringed circus? 

You may find this article of interest: 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8700782/ECB-is-eurolands-last-hope-as-bail-out-machinery-fails-to-resolve-crisis.html