The continuing crisis in Greece has been presented in questionable terms. First, we have been told that the alternative to ‘austerity’ is a disorderly default. Defaults do not have to be disorderly. New York and Cleveland, both members of a different currency union, have defaulted on their debts in the past; the dollar was unharmed, and they were not forced to adopt a new currency.
Second, we are told that Greece will have to leave the Euro. Greece cannot be forced not to use the Euro. Money is what people accept as a unit of exchange, and if people in Greece opt to trade in Euros, they cannot be stopped. Some countries use other countries’ currencies informally; some (like Ecuador, which uses the US dollar) do it formally. Germany might have more success in insisting that Greece should use a different currency from them if Germany itself was to leave the Euro, but that seems unlikely.
The economic policy that the EU, and Germany and France in particular, are forcing on Greece has led to a major depression – and the problem does lie in that policy, not in Greece’s deficit. Austerity is the worst possible answer to an economic depression; and austerity which is targeted on the poor is indefensible morally as well as economically. If France and Germany want to ensure that Greece does not default, to protect their own banks, they need to take steps to shore up the Greek economy. At present, they are doing the opposite.