Dutch ditch euro? Netherlands ‘Neuro’ plan
Its hour has struck and the eurozone's second-most stable economy, the Netherlands, is beginning to feel the first hand effects of contagion, with the previous apathy among its taxpayers quickly giving way to animosity.
This is happening despite the EU leadership's united resolve to halt the spread of Europe's debt crisis, as the outlook fails to impress investors.“The worst day yet for the euro” is how one banker called news that the Netherlands, considered the second-strongest economy in the single currency, has seen its borrowing costs raised by the markets to new highs.The Dutch prime minister was forced to react, on concerns the debt problem is spiraling out of control.Premier Mark Rutte has said he would like to be able to push countries out of the euro, to put out the fire as he called it. This is raising fears that states will be forced to leave the single currency in order to stop this crisis spreading.As a first step, a majority of Dutch people, finds a new poll, want to stop the bailout of Greece, which many see as the heart of the problem.“I love Greece. Every year I go to Greece, but this is a little bit, I think, not normal,” a woman in The Hague told RT.“They got a lot of money, millions of euros, but till this moment they don’t do anything,” one man concurs.“They should help us, really, because we have the same problems here, you know, economic problems,” another man echoes.While many of today's euroskeptics were singing its praises in the ’90s, top economist Arjo Klamer, the man dubbed Europe's Doctor Doom, wrote an open letter to EU leaders warning the single currency would destroy Europe. And deep down, he says, those leaders knew it.“With the euro they brought in the Trojan horse that will undo the European project,” Arjo Klamer.“It is a big danger. It causes conflict, serious disagreements, economic instability, taxpayers have to pay the price and they get very upset about it, the banks and political leaders. We knew former politicians were aware of this problem but they pushed it through in this great ideal of one euro – one Europe,” he says.One euro, one Europe cannot work because the Dutch just do not feel solidarity with the other members, says author Rene Cuperus.“We now have to be interested in how Greeks pay their taxes, I don’t want to know how the Greeks pay their taxes, or what the pension age of the French is,” Cuperus storms.Neither Greece nor France has a place in the “Neuro”, a new Northern Euro only for prudent states proposed by a top Dutch ruling party official last week. Experts think just three countries actually deserve to stay in.According to economist Ivan Van De Cloot “Only Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium can share the same currency without having economic costs.”The Netherlands currently pays more per person into the EU coffers than anyone else. But growing numbers now say “Nee” to going Dutch with their southern neighbors.
