Open Europe reports that Holland’s Frits Bolkestein has become the first former EU commissioner to call for some sort of euro-zone break-up. Admittedly he’s something of a maverick, not least for his enthusiasm for the free market (and lack of enthusiasm for multiculturalism), but here’s what he told Algemeen Dagblad:
“The Netherlands has to exit the euro as quickly as possible . . . The monetary union has totally failed. The euro turned out to be a sleeping pill which made Europe doze off instead of thinking about our competitiveness . . . Let’s stop with the euro and instead strengthen the Single Market… We don’t need the euro for that.”
Open Europe notes that, as an alternative, Bolkestein has proposed a currency union formed of economically strong countries, a so-called “Triple A euro.”
And, yes, that sounds a lot like the northern euro to me . . .