Revisiting the euro’s north-south rift

SINCE THE euro zone was first engulfed by a sovereign-debt crisis a decade ago, northern member states have dished out plenty of strictures. “Greece, but also Spain and Portugal, have to understand that hard work...comes before the siesta,” advised Bild, a German tabloid, in 2015. Two years later, even as the crisis receded, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, then the Dutch finance minister, told southerners: “You cannot spend all the money on drinks and women and then ask for help.”

Northerners’ constant fear of underwriting southern irresponsibility has led politicians from Amsterdam to Helsinki to put the brake on banking reforms and fiscal integration across the zone. It has caused numerous fights over monetary policy, the latest of which is in full swing. On November 1st the European Central Bank (ECB) resumed quantitative easing (QE), the purchase of bonds using newly created money. The decision to do so, made in September, was roundly attacked by newspapers—and even former and current central bankers—in northern countries including Germany and the Netherlands. The complaints reflect savers’ dread of negative interest rates and a suspicion that easing lets indebted southern countries off the hook. Together this can make monetary policy seem like a source of transfers.

In reality, the matter of whether...

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