[didrexx]

You should be banned for eternity.

[Piediahef]

Those dirty rosbifs imposing their currency culture on you Spiffor

[dfuzioniag]

Mine has a pound key and a Yen key but no Euro key.

[JasminBerkova]

SPIFFOR!!!

Corrected for your pleasure.

€ should be the British currency too - why were we so pigheaded at the time?

[TessUnsonia]

Bankruptcy.

[DumnEuronoumn]

Corrected for your pleasure.

€ should be the British currency too - why were we so pigheaded at the time?

Why the past tense? Are the British more willing to join the € now?

[pE71J5Sw]

Works

[reaciciomarep]

I am $urpri$€d to $€€ that th€r€ i$ no d€dicat€d pound or y€n k€y, but th€r€ i$ a d€dicat€d $ k€y. Thi$ in $pit€ of th€ fact that th€r€ i$ $till a $ $ign abov€ th€ 4.

[dmitrynts]

My HP keyboard is still proudly nationalistic. Only $$ baby!

[Stappipsy]

Welcome to the new millennium, Mad Monk.

[LypeReexy]

if you're going to adopt that condescending tone, you might at least have something to say.

i was, of course, referring to eurozone countries who are staring into the abyss, ireland, greece and portugal. even austria isn't looking too clever with its banks tied into shaky eastern european investments. i have read that some people and politicians in these countries have been questioning the wisdom of joining the euro and many commentators here have suggested that some eurozone countries may consider quitting the single currency. personally, i can't see it happening (whatever the economic arguments, it would be political suicide), but the very fact it's being talked about says a lot.

eastern europe is not looking very healthy at all. hungary has been bailed out, the baltic states are in serious trouble, poland could soon find itself in severe difficultly (60% of mortgages there are in swiss francs, the zloty has more than halved in value against the franc in recent times). the financial storm in europe has a long way to run and almost all the money owed by eastern european countries is owed to eurozone countries (especially banks in austria, sweden, greece, italy, and belgium). in other words, when these eastern european countries go down, they will take a lot of western european banks with them. this will only increase the strain on the single currency. i think that the financial crisis will affect europe far more, and for a longer period, than it will for the united states and the UK. it will prove a very stern test, and i wonder if the eurozone countries will pass it.

Condescending?

My impression is that on the whole analysts agree that the Euro saved currency runoff, stock markets from plummeting and rampant inflation in countries like Ireland. Even in Belgium financial experts are relieved we're part of the Eurozone, saying we couldn't have limited the damage on our own.

Being an integrationist my feeling is the Commission and that lame duck Barrosso failed to organise a joint effort to pull the EU out of the financial swap, but at least the ECB with its limited powers kept down interest rates. Better than nothing at all I suppose.

But you're at liberty to mention which politicians are claiming it's a better idea to leave the single currency. If you are referring to the so called 'Eurorealists' (a moniker for Eurosceptics), ...

FYI: Belgium has little or no banks left. They're pretty much all in foreign hands now, thanks to the financial crisis, poorly planned negotiations and our internal political crisis (Belgian government has come to a standstill due to bickering over a new state reform, with debt soaring once again etc)

[Qxsumehj]

Is "€pe" pronounced "Europe"

[DownloadMan]

for example, a german politician is going to find it hard to explain to his constituents why they are bailing out some other country, when germany's exports are collapsing and the economy is contracting rapidly.

That's actually something which is not really questioned much here, because as an export nation we rely heavily on product orders from elsewhere, so it's a key interest to have other economies not breaking down since that hits us hard as well.