By Martin Banks - 1st December 2011
If Italy would also be forced to leave the euro, I would not mourn either
Frits Bolkestein
Former EU commissioner Frits Bolkestein has said he has lost confidence in the future of the euro and that a split-up of the single currency is "unavoidable".
Blaming "big, cultural divides" between countries, he said, "We constructed something that does not work in the long term."
The Dutchman, a commissioner for internal market and services from 1999 to 2004, also pleaded for "manoeuvring" Greece out of the eurozone.
In exchange for this, he says the debt-stricken country would get support from the EU.
"If Italy would also be forced to leave the euro, I would not mourn either," Bolkestein said, adding that he does not believe that 'Mediterranean countries' can "change" in the short term.
Bolkestein, whose 'Bolkestein directive' on services remains the focus of heated debate, believes that, eventually, a 'neuro' will develop for "disciplined" north European countries.
He said, "I fear that politicians who merely patch up problems in the hope that better days will come, will soon be confronted with the unavoidable reality: a split-up of the eurozone."
"Such a process can take many years and nobody knows how that will precisely go," he told a Dutch newspaper.
Meanwhile, speaking in a debate in parliament ahead of next week's EU summit, ECR leader Jan Zahradil warned that attempts to use the current crisis to further the European political union project will "tear the EU apart".
Speaking in a debate with representatives of the commission and council, the Czech deputy said, "As we are discussing the agenda for the upcoming EU council, let me tell you it seems to me that we have two European councils.
"The first, the formal one, which represents 27 states takes place occasionally but according to an agreed schedule.
"The other one seems to be in session permanently and really decides. It has only two members: Merkel and Sarkozy.
"It is a good example that when hard times arrive, the so called community method turns only into a big illusion where only nation states - especially the powerful ones - decide."
