The euro was created to bring economic stability to Europe. However, the politicians who promoted European Monetary Union ignored inherent flaws in the project. The credit crisis has exposed these flaws. As a result, a number of the weaker eurozone members are facing severe deflation and a quite desperate economic outlook.

The leading European politicians behind the euro project, such as former French president Francois Mitterrand, weren’t much interested in economics. In a new book, The Euro: The Politics of the New Global Currency (Yale) David Marsh shows how these politicians brushed aside the concerns of their advisers as they rushed eagerly towards monetary union. Mr Mitterrand’s vision for the single currency, says Mr Marsh, was “based on emotion, psychology and wishful thinking” rather than rational economics.