German Populist Leader Tells Breitbart: Leaving the Euro Is Italian Crisis Solution

BERLIN, Germany: Alternative for Germany (AfD) co-leader Alexander Gauland told Breitbart London that Italy’s solution to the ongoing political crisis is to leave the euro. On Monday, Italian President Sergio Mattarella stopped the appointment of eurosceptic economist Paolo Savona, supported by the populist coalition of La Lega and the Five Star Movement (M5S) and ultimately denied the populists the opportunity to form a government earlier this week.

According to Mr. Gauland, the main issue in Italy is not the overreach of the European Union, but the euro currency.

“The, problem of Italy is that it is a totally different economy. They have a totally different economic culture that’s totally different from Germany and the Netherlands and Belgium and the northern countries,” he said.

“You can’t have a common currency without a common economic policy, and we don’t want a common economic policy because it’s a problem of culture. The Italians, like the French, always had inflation while we in Germany have only had inflation after the First and Second World War,” he added.

Gauland noted that only by ditching the euro could Italy once again become a competitive market saying: “So you have to leave the European currency, then Italy is free to lower prices, to be more competitive.

I am afraid that the proposed solution of just leaving the Euro and adopting their own currency would not work.

Before the EU, Italy’s economy was doing great because they had control over their own currency. Having lax copyright and patent laws Italian business could easily copy any Western product. The fact that the government kept Italian currency value low meant those companies could export their low quality, low end merchandise at a huge profit. Then Italy joined the EU and lost control over their currency. With high value currency all those cheap industry products were no longer a good deal and much of Italy’s industry went away.

Now, the cheap, low end product market has been captured by China, India and a plethora of other Asian powers. So, even if Italy left the EU and got back control over their currency, the cheap, one trick economic policy that worked in the pre-EU days won’t work anymore. Also, Italy’s cost of government is much too high as there are too many non-productive government workers in ratio to potentially, but currently unemployed, private sector workers.

Reforming Italy is not possible without a complete collapse of the current method of socialist government employment. If there is a way back to higher personal lifestyles and personal wealth, it isn’t obvious. Italy is that person you know who has made every possible bad life decision and is now past any possibility of redemption.

I agree with the German. When we were in Italy some years ago the Italians clearly explained how the Euro had devastated their economy, jobs, sales, labor, etc. The culture of Italy IS totally different from northern Europe, as is that of France and Spain.

Northern Europe would be fine with the Euro - let the southern leftist countries suffer the consequences of their debt style......

I’m trying too recall...

For some reason, the rough conversion of 5000 lira = $7.50 and 10,000 lira = $15.00 comes to mind...but it’s been decades. Just don’t remember.

Yeah...kinda like Venezuelan/Zimbabwean money.

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