Greek Economic Turmoil Could Hurt Euro

By Richard Geidroyc, World Coin News February 12, 2010

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At the moment it may appear to be unthinkable, but all European Union eyes are on Greece, which due to economic problems could find itself uninvited from continuing in the EU’s euro currency union.

European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet recently called the suggestion an “absurd hypothesy,” but on Jan. 15 Greece presented the European Commission with a three-year budget plan with deficit-reduction measures aimed at reducing what is now Europe’s biggest budget shortfall. There is serious concern that the deficit led to downgrading Greece’s debt during December 2009, sparking a rout in its bonds.

Mitul Kotecha is the head of global foreign exchange strategy for Calyon in Hong Kong. His quoted in the Jan. 18 The Wall Street Journal newspaper as saying, “Although debt concerns are unlikely to dissipate quickly, especially given Greece’s inability to convince markets of its plans to cut its burgeoning budget deficit, the ‘risk on’ tone is likely to have a stronger hand later in the week, driven in large part by strong Chinese data.”

When asked only a day earlier by the Reuters news reporting service what he thought of talk Greece might be forced to leave the “euro zone,” Trichet said, “I do not comment myself on absurd hypotheses, so that would be my response.”

The Jan. 15 Bloomberg Business Week reported Luxembourg’s Jean-Claude Juncker, who is identified as the head of the group of euro-area finance ministers, as saying, “Two things won’t happen: Greece won’t go bankrupt; but it has to make enormous efforts. The second point is that the hypothesis that a country will leave the eurogroup or euro zone is not a question.”

Juncker continued that leaving the euro zone would “cause unmanageable problems for a country.”

Talk like that could be likened to saying South Carolina won’t secede from the Union if Abraham Lincoln is elected president. In this current situation the EU might have to bring in the financial troops to bail out Greece somehow.

And they might have to. Goldman Sachs analyst Themistoklis Fiotakis, based in London, told Bloomberg Business Week Greece’s economic plan “still leaves a number of sources for uncertainty, which could aggravate a nervous market,” continuing, “Part of the euro underperformance can be linked back t the evolving pressures around Greece’s fiscal challenges.”

Greece joined the currency union at its onset in 2001, dumping its drachma currency for the euro. Greece now issues coins and bank notes exclusively in euro denominations, but all this would have to change if Greece becomes officially ineligible to continue as a currency union participant. Should Greece revert to the drachma its currency would experience currency exchange rate fluctuations against the euro as does any other foreign currency, including the U.S. dollar.

Greece and Italy both struggled to fulfill EU economic requirements to join the currency union when the currency union was being initiated. There are a number of additional countries now waiting to join the euro zone, but no nation to date has opted out voluntarily or involuntarily. If Greece was to leave the currency union this could present another dimension to the future of the entire EU.