Euro at Risk of Survival

Voices predicting the disappearance or breakup of the Euro are getting louder, especially after the latest election results in France and Greece. Countries that need to be bailed out are screaming that austerity programs are a pipedream and not acceptable to their pshyche. Countries that are asked to provide funds to prevent the possible bankruptcy of a country such as Greece refuse to support a lifestyle they have conscientously put aside and have themselves accepted economic austerity. There is an attitude among some of the European Union member states not in crisis that it is simply unfair to bail out those states that have lived beyond their means for so many years. In the case of the Euro, you have a European Central Bank (ECB) but you do not have a European Treasury Department. The lack of a European Treasury is the missing piece of the puzzle. Without it, the ECB is limited in the assistance it can provide to eurozone member state. A treasury generally has responsbility for printing, receiving, holding and managing monies as well as disbursing them. A partial or complete demise of the Euro no longer seems to be implausible, given the structure of teh European Union. America has a central bank, the Federal Reserve Systems, as wel as the U.S. Department of Treasury.