Soros Sounds a Warning on the Future of EU

George Soros issued a dire warning to the European Union recently, stating that fundamental flaws in the design of the euro are preventing economically distressed nations like Greece from getting back on their feet and threatening the very existence of the EU.

Because EU member nations cannot print their own money, they are not able to bail themselves out of a financial crisis by simply making more cash and distributing it among their citizens, as Ben Bernanke did with U.S. banks in 2008. As a consequence, they are forced to either increase the taxes of those who can pay them or impose austerity measures on citizens who are dependent upon social services. —ARK

Reuters via The Huffington Post:

“The euro had no provision for correction. There was no arrangement for any country leaving the euro, which in the current circumstances is probably inevitable,” he [Soros] said.

While he called survival of the European Union a “vital interest to all,” he said the EU needed structural changes to halt a process of disintegration.

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Flickr / World Economic Forum

George Soros speaks at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Switzerland in early 2010.