The north-south split has many causes. Germany sells machines and prestige cars with a fat profit margin. “Club Med” (the south) competes lower down, against China. Yet it is also because Germany screwed down wages in the early years of EMU, gaining 25 per cent in competitiveness against its peers. How this happened is an old story. But the consequences are toxic, so toxic that François Heisbourg, French head of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, is calling for the euro to be “put to sleep” in order to save the European project. “We must face the reality that the EU itself is now threatened by the euro,” he said.
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