It's pretty much the same with many european mediteranian countries. Not much export industry to speak of, they have income from tourism and that's pretty much it.
Problem is, they now have the same currency as the industrially much more developed nations of central europe. The european union already transfers many billion of EUR every year into these countries. Fully 1/3 of the transfers come from the german taxpayers. Go figure.
Despite all this, Greece is practically bankrupt by now and has to apply for help to the other european countries. Others like Portugal will very likely follow.
In other words, the taxpayers of some nations are now expected to cover the debts of other nations, and we are talking about hundreds of billions of EUR here.
I guess nobody likes paying for the debts of others, so we are possibly facing a veritable currency crisis here in Europe right now.
Basically many states are spending much more than they can afford, national debts are spiralling out of control and it get's more and more difficult to get new credits to keep the show running.
Never mind paying back your debts, guess that will never happen anyway.
Just to give you an idea what is currently happening in good ol' Europe atm.
|