By Andrea Terzi
(Cross-posted from Mecpoc)
One claimed objective of the single currency area in Europe is (or should I say was?) to create a large single market for producers. But now the ECB is pressing national governments to gear their policies to enhance competitiveness so that they can “count on external demand” and increase their net exports! Mario Draghi, President of the ECB, and a key figure in the team now managing the European crisis, made this statement while responding to an Italian journalist, in the Q&A session of the ECB press conference of 8 December 2011.
Earlier, Draghi had described the ECB’s view of the 3-pillar recipe to end the euro crisis as follows:
