Posts tagged flawed

Source: http://rt.com

A homeless man sits by debris in central Athens (AFP Photo / Louisa Gouliamaki)

Bulgaria, the European Union’s poorest state, has shelved its plans to join the eurozone. Sofia says the decision comes in response to the bloc’s deteriorating economic conditions.

Financial expert Patrick Young told RT that Bulgaria made the only sensible choice under the current circumstances in the eurozone.

RT: It’s not a decision that’s going to be welcomed by the eurozone’s bosses, is it?

Patrick Young: Well, isn’t this truly a case of the tail waging the dog? Here we have out of 27 the poorest economy. The poorest economy in the eurozone has turned around and said – we don`t want your euro because your grand design is deeply flawed, it’s built on sand, it’s a catastrophe. The finance minister himself made a great statement today. He said our citizens are worried that if we join the euro we won’t know who we have to bail out. And that’s a very poignant point, because of course he knows that neighboring countries such as Slovenia have been plunged into huge financial repercussions because they’ve joined the euro. They came in late, and as they joined the euro, they’ve been forced to end up spending money to subsidize the pensions of people in Greece, who are actually getting higher pensions than pensioners are in eastern countries.

RT: Bulgaria has been acclaimed by many as a shining example of a country that did austerity right. Now it fears if it joins, it’ll have to bail out countries that couldn’t do it right. Is that an accurate picture?

PY: Notwithstanding the terrible crisis in the eurozone, the truth is that the European Union’s glorious idea that they can pull everybody’s money together and go towards prosperity has been a fiasco because all of the people in the euro are being sucked towards poverty because of the fact that they have to transfer so much money to the profligate, incompetent governments … on the southern side of the eurozone. The Bulgarian government has made the only sensible decision that they could, which is, why should they endanger the hard work, the sacrifices of their citizens in order to pay money into basically a bottomless pit? We do not have any comprehensive coherent leadership of the economy in Europe. And this is a big wake-up call, because what the Bulgarians are saying is, you know what, Germany, we admire your economic [success], but boy, you are making a mess of the eurozone.

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