When the euro-wide crisis erupted six years ago, many people called it the "euro crisis". As today’s reality proves, the crisis was nothing but a mere currency crisis. In my view it was more of a cocktail made up of one part debt crisis, one part banking crisis and one part balance of payments crisis. A combination of overambitious growth expectations, waning competitiveness caused among others because of generous wages, insufficient financial regulation and irresponsible banking caused sizeable imbalances to accumulate, which then helped fuel the crisis.
The Euro Area – Current Challenges and Recent Achievements
