Euro economy explained

Campaign for Liberty

AHAHAH - gold.

Nice one Tropo

However, if Eurozone countries owe each other money it's the net Eurozone debt position which counts.

Also, despite what the media want us to believe, to me it doesn't look like debt between EU countries.

It's more like individual Eurozone government debt in the form of bond issues which have been purchased by non government financial institutions and pension funds.

Except perhaps for the special fund created for Greece
Which will be loans given directly to Greece

In aggregate the EU is far from being in the worst position, but when you have a system where confidence is still a fundamental requirement, and some of the weak links are looking like breaking it doesn't help any part of the system.

That said, when you can look at this system and go "well it's not all bad" that would generally suggest that they are more likely to go through a big reformation period rather than scrap the whole thing. How the go about the progress and who pays the bills should make for an interesting and no doubt volatile period.

That said I would be surprised if a couple of particularly bad countries got the boot with the EU and ECB reform their system.