If anything, it did the reverse, by making it much cheaper for people, companies and governments in previously inflation-prone and economically unstable countries such as Ireland, Spain and Greece to borrow, cutting their interest rates to German levels and creating artificial economic booms. In highly indebted Italy, euro membership lowered the cost to the taxpayer of servicing public debt and so reduced the pressure to control or repay it. There was less discipline, not more. Then, when the credit bubble burst after 2008, EU countries’ underlying economic weaknesses and rigidities were laid
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