Ce que l'Histoire peut expliquer sur la crise grecque

Infographie : François Descheemaekere

What History Can Explain About Greek Crisis

[The New York Times]

The decision to suspend Greece from the common currency became inevitable when it emerged that Athens had fiddled with the accounts yet again amid chronic economic weakness, forfeiting what credibility in the international arena it still had left. That was in 1908. After diluting the gold content in its coins, Greece left the Latin Monetary Union, whose founding members also included France, Italy, Belgium and Switzerland. More than a century later, history may repeat itself, albeit in vastly different circumstances. From the dual currency economy of 14th-century Florence to the monetary union of Austria-Hungary and Argentina’s abandoned dollar peg, the past is littered with examples of countries’ weighing the costs and benefits of different monetary regimes.
What can history teach us about the options still left for a euro zone pulled apart by divergence between a competitive core and an uncompetitive periphery; arguments about austerity versus stimulus; and the increasing gulf between those advocating to keep Greece inside the club at all costs and those lobbying for an exit?
Lire : nytimes.com