Why did the Europeons want Greece in the EU in the first place?
All about territory. Like Jose Manuel Barroso said in 2007, they are an empire, and empires gobble up territory. Shows that they really are hawkish about entities like Russia too; the 1990s annexation of the Balkan states (with Clinton’s foolish help) was a land grab and a challenge to Russia.
This is a curious question.
I think it became a topic of who wants to play at the poker table, and the rules committee eventually agreed to a couple of basic rules. Business-wise....shifting to one standard currency was BIG deal in the 1990s when the topic got brought up.
Based out of Germany at the time....it was a major hassle whenever I traveled around to France, Italy or Netherlands...because of the currency requirements. Every local bank charged to get money, and you always had money left at the end....so the banks charged you to take the left-over currency back. It was hard to find anyone who was against the one-currency idea.
What Greece found though....they had significant debts already in the 1980s....operating with massive bank loans to carry them through each year....and situated with a large population who refused to report actual income or pay assigned taxes, and a large bulky government that had costs written all over it.
It would have made better sense to limit the Euro to strictly Germany, France, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Belgium and Austria. But that’s not the way it unfolded.