The Daily Telegraph’s Ambrose Evans Pritchard interviews Finland’s foreign minister in a piece here. Erkki Tuoimioja’s comment that Finland “has to face openly the possibility of a euro break-up” is attracting attention, but I wouldn’t make too much of it. As the minister also notes:
Our officials, like everybody else and like every general staff, have some sort of operational plan for any eventuality.
Of course they do. Contingency plan(s), that’s all. It would be shocking if they didn’t have at least one.
It’s better to focus on this:
Let me add that the break-up of the euro does not mean the end of the European Union. It could make the EU function better.
Now there is the heresy. Merkel, the Brussels gang, Monti, and all the rest are out there saying that the break-up of the euro will mean disaster, the collapse of “Europe,” a reprisal of Verdun, and so on. And here we have a a senior minister from the euro zone’s solvent half saying something very different.
Let’s be clear. Mr. Tuoimioja does not want the currency union to break up. He appears to support the “consensus that a eurozone break-up would cost more in the short-run or medium-run than managing the crisis,” and he could well be right. The truth is that no one knows. At the same time, he is also signaling his view that some of the talk about the consequences of a break-up (which will, of course, vary with the type of break-up: Grexit, Fixit, Northern Euro or whatever) has been overblown.
Under the circumstances, that’s an interesting observation And it’s an interesting time to make it.
And note this too:
[Tuoimioja] voiced deep suspicion of plans by a “gang of four” EU insiders — including the European Central Bank’s Mario Draghi — to ensnare member states into some form of fiscal union. “I don’t trust these people,” he said.
Read the whole thing, particularly when it comes to the “seniority” (how it ranks for repayment) of any lending by the ESM (the new bailout fund). That matters. A lot.
Tick tock.