In my defence, I haven’t used it for five years and I now forget the password.

However, for dozens of our esteemed Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), wandering alone in the social media wilderness we call MySpace is a regular pursuit.

According to the EU Digital Pulse 2012 report, 3% of the 102 MEPs surveyed by ComRes say that they frequently – that’s ‘daily or weekly’, ladies and gentlemen – log on to MySpace. And they say politicians are losing touch with youth vote…

WikiPolitics

I’m being a bit mean-spirited by plucking that particular little nugget from the wealth of data unveiled by the ComRes survey. MEPs are actually quite a social bunch.

A healthy majority of MEPs use Facebook, YouTube and Wikipedia on a regular basis. Compare that with the 39% of ‘Brussels influencers’ who frequently use Facebook.

Perhaps surprisingly, MEPs have been relatively slow to embrace the power of Twitter compared to some of their national political counterparts and their usage of LinkedIn seems low (given that their contracts are up for public renewal every five years).

Questions for further study

Like all good research, the study provides answers to some key questions but raises a crop of fresh issues too. At the launch of the study at a European Commission building in Brussels, a common thread ran through the questions from the audience: engagement.

Yes, just about everyone in the Brussels bubble is hooked on Wikipedia but are they just using it for research or do they view it as a collaborative social tool?

Do MEPs use Facebook as a place to engage with constituents or is it just an extra broadcast channel?

And when we see European Commissioners firing out 20 tweets a day, are they (a) doing it themselves (b) telling their team what to tweet or (c) entire oblivious to what their tweet machine is generating?

Those are questions for another day but this study already tells us a great deal about how Brussels is using social media. And, as Andrew Hawkins of ComRes said, it opens up a world of opportunities for those looking to engage on EU issues.

New tools, new thinking

ZN’s Phil Weiss followed up with some tips for organisations looking to make the most of social media tools, including the need to break down internal silos and begin a wholesale mindset shift that focuses on where you want to go rather than obsessing about how you get there.

It’s advice that EU institutions would do well to heed but there are plenty of great examples of social media use from within the Brussels bubble – typically led by initiative-taking individuals willing to abandon old ways of thinking.

Take Ian Andersen of DG Interpretation. He is using Facebook to solve a chronic staffing shortage among the ranks of EU interpreters as hundreds of experienced staff prepare for retirement. [Check out ‘Interpreting for Europe’ on Facebook]

He chose Facebook simply because that’s where young people are to be found. It’s an ideal medium for answering questions, giving careers advice and launching recruitment drives for very specific skill sets – how else would you find a batch of 25-year-olds fluent in Lithuanian, Latvian and German, who also have degrees in interpreting?

Demographics

Dig into the ComRes study and you find that younger MEPs are much more prolific on social media channels than older MEPs. No shock there.

But there are still plenty of older politicians who are active online. Indeed, Thomas Myrup Kristensen of Facebook Nordic, who was one of the panellists discussing the report at the launch, noted that the older demographic is an area of rapid growth on Facebook.

They are ‘liking’ baby pictures, keeping up with emigrant offspring, and joining local community action groups. Maybe, just maybe, they could eventually engage in European political issues.

The acid test from an EU perspective will be the 2014 European Parliament elections. Will MEPs step up their online social networking in a bid to engage voters? Could they even use online advertising to target very specific sub-sections of the electorate? Think of the US obsession with the ‘Soccer Mom’ demographic during their 1996 Presidential election and imagine having Google AdWords and Facebook advertising at your disposal.

All of which brings me back to the big question: Could this election come to be remembered as ‘The MySpace Election’?

(Hint: No. No, it could not.)

The hastily-arranged medical summit, called by the Medical Association of Athens, is due to discuss plans for a new European Medical Network through which doctors could support the ailing health service in Greece.

Doctors in Athens say grinding austerity has led to the closure of clinics, increases in infectious diseases, rising drug use, and a chronic shortage of medicines, risking dire long-term consequences for public health. There have been reports of Greek patients pleading with pharmacists for medicines as the pharmaceutical supply chain teeters on the brink of collapse.

European finance ministers this week signed off on a €130 billion package for Greece – the country’s second bailout since 2010 – after the Greek government agreed to further cuts to public spending, and the holders of Greek bonds accepted a deal which will see them lose around 74% of their investments.

This news was broadly welcomed by political leaders and financial markets but doctors say there is little reason to celebrate.

The Medical Association of Athens has had to set up makeshift clinics to care for the growing number of Greeks who can no longer afford health insurance.

The Assocation’s President, Dr George Patoulis, said “drastic legal interventions” have been introduced and he called on the medical profession across Europe to support Greek patients.

“During  these difficult days, solidarity on behalf of the European medical community is more than ever of great significance,” he wrote in a letter to the President’s of medical bodies across Europe. (I have a copy but cannot link.)

“Your experience, as a result of evidence based medicine and health policy patterns in your countries, is important for us in order to confront the new healthcare frame.”

The meeting is due to debate strategies for shielding health protection initiatives at a time of deep cutbacks. It will also look at best practice in drug  and prescription policies, and the liberalisation of the medical profession.

Dr Patoulis said Greece is offering licenses to “non-doctor entrepreneurs” to run primary care centres as part of its agreement with the EU and IMF to introduce competition to the professions. A similar push to open up the ‘protected professions’ can be found in fine print of the bailout deals agreed by Ireland and Portugal. Italy is also attempting to liberalise its pharmacy sector, despite considerable resistance from pharmacists.

(According to the invitation, the Medical Association of Athens was offering to pay for accommodation and a cultural visit to the Acropolis museum of Athens.)

Copyright Gary Finnegan 2012

European health ministers have poured cold water on a long-standing EU proposal to allow pharmaceutical companies to provide information on medicines directly to patients.

Ministers say the Information to Patients Directive could increase red tape for government agencies and companies if they are required to vet information which is designed for public consumption.

EU law currently prohibits companies from advertising to consumers but, as part of the 2008 “pharmaceutical package” of new medicines legislation, the European Commission proposed allowing some factual information about medicinal products to be published in newspapers and magazines.

Consumer groups were sceptical of the original plan, fearing it would open the door to the kind of hard-sell drug advertising commonly seen on television in the United States.

MEPs were equally uneasy about some aspects of the Commission’s proposal and insisted that safeguards be put in place to ensure any information shared with the public is objective rather than repackaged marketing material.

The saga has been a case study in how the slow-moving machinery of EU legislation works: the Commission proposes a new law, MEPs amend it in several parliamentary committees before voting on it, and then it falls to the European Council where health ministers decide whether and how to implement it.

Inter-institutional power play

The law now under consideration bears little resemblance to the draft published in 2008. The directive has been in the works for so long that it has seen the election of a new European Parliament in 2009 and the appointment of a new European Commission in 2010.

Perhaps even more significantly, the directive was originally drafted by the Commission’s ‘Enterprise & Industry’ directorate which was then responsible for pharmaceuticals and was widely seen as having a pro-business agenda.

However, in 2010, responsibility for medicines was handed to John Dalli, the new EU Commissioner for Health and Consumers – himself a former Maltese health minister. This shifted the debate towards consumer protection and patient empowerment.

Companies say they want to share fact-based information about products in print and on the internet given the enormous amounts of data and opinion about medicines and diseases already accessible online, some of which is of dubious quality.

Consumer and patient groups argued that any information provided by industry would have to be vetted by independent experts before being put in the public domain and this was one of the aspects of the directive presented to health ministers.

It seems the directive is going nowhere fast as national governments say the need to cut red tape and contain costs for businesses trumps demands for high-quality information on medicines. Paola Testori Coggi, director general of the Commission’s health and consumers arm, said the delay is regrettable but she sees little prospect of an immediate break in the deadlock.

All pain, no gain

Without attempting to judge whether health ministers, MEPs or various arms of the Commission are ‘right’ in their approach to getting this law through, it’s safe to conclude that a huge amount of time and money has been wasted on this mangled legislation – and citizens are none the wiser and no better off.

And people wonder why the EU can’t tackle the ongoing debt crisis…

At the turn of the year, the Czech Republic sent a platoon of army doctors to help neighbouring Slovakia keep its hospitals open after a mass walk-out of 1,600 medical staff.

A state of emergency was declared as the government scrambled to find a way of solving a chronic medical manpower crisis prompted by an exodus of young doctors. Medical graduates are shunning the €430-a-month contract on offer in the pared-down Slovak health service, in favour of jobs in Germany paying starting salaries of €1,890 per month.

Welcome to Austerity Europe. This is barely the tip of the iceberg. Doctors in Romania and Hungary are threatening to copy the action of their Slovak colleagues in protest against yet another round of pay cuts introduced in an effort to rein in budget deficits.

Patients took to the streets in Romania this month to protest against the government’s new Health Bill which will institute a fresh round of cuts. Violent scuffles followed, with some protesters hurling Molotov cocktails at riot police. Observers say it is the worst public order disruption since the Romanian people turfed out Nicoale Ceauşescu in 1989.

Plus ça change

In Bulgaria, just 4% of the 2012 budget has been earmarked for health – a small slice of a shrinking pie. Staff have seen salaries fall and workloads rise. They’ve never heard of Croke Park in Sofia.

Lithuania too made swingeing cuts to its public sector, slashing spending by 30% early in the crisis. The result was hardship across education and health services, although the Lithuanians are slowly finding their feet again having also devalued their currency.

The picture is less positive in Hungary. The IMF was invited into Budapest in 2008, but relations have been strained since the 2010 election returned a populist party which blames foreign creditors for their home-grown woes. Hungary is currently trying to negotiate an additional bailout programme with the IMF and EU but promising its people that it will not accept further austerity as a precondition for cheap money. Good luck with that.

Non-eurozone countries have taken plenty of pain but are not in the glare of the media spotlight because, frankly, it doesn’t affect the rest of us that much. Some Europeans are more equal than others, it seems.

Indeed, surveys in several former Eastern bloc states show the grinding poverty of EU membership is not going down well – there is now rising nostalgia for the grinding poverty of the communist era. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Austeritis maximus

Economists are divided on whether austerity is the solution to the crisis. To some, cutbacks are the tough medicine Europeans must swallow if they are to live within their means. To others, austerity is poison and Europe has been administered a lethal dose.

For the Greeks, where austerity has been taken to the extreme, the choices are stark: continue to slash health, education and welfare spending while staying in the euro. Or leave the euro and continue to slash health education and welfare spending. (Sound familiar?)

Greece takes plenty of flak for its lacklustre efforts to collect taxes and failure to take on vested interests but the evidence of its health services austerity push is plain.

The drug supply chain has collapsed, leaving patients pleading with doctors and pharmacists to source routine medicines like aspirin and beta-blockers. The Panhellenic Associaiton of Pharmacists says half of the country’s 12,000 pharmacies are reporting shortages in frequently-used medicines.

Crisis hits medicines supply

The reasons for the medicines crisis are complex but boil down to the government not having the cash to pay its bills. Earlier this year several large drug companies accepted deeply discounted government bonds in lieu of payment owed by public hospitals.

Why? They had waited two years for payment and wanted to cut their losses. Some have now left the country altogether while others insist on cash-on-delivery rather than issuing invoices for which they know they will not be paid.

Meanwhile, the government has not been reimbursing pharmacists who dispense medicines on drug payments schemes. Around €330 billion is owed to retail pharmacists since April of last year, causing a chronic cash-flow crisis.

As a result, supplies are running dangerously low, because wholesalers are no longer willing to provide medicines to retailers on credit, for fear of being left with more bad debts.

The government has also introduced price controls for medicines, meaning they will not pay more than a unilaterally agreed fee per dose. Naturally, the price they set is significantly down on last year, which was down on the year before. Some wholesalers have responded by taking their stock and exporting it to markets which are still functioning.

At the end of the broken supply chain are patients. Where drugs are available, pharmacists are typically asking for cash payment, advising patients to seek reimbursement from the state insurance companies – a task previously undertaken by pharmacists. Many of those who cannot pay up front must go without.

Unseen victims

Meanwhile, as bad as things are across Europe, spare a thought for the truly forgotten victims of European austerity: developing countries.

With all this talk of ratings agencies and sovereign bonds, it would be easy to think that governments were the only people seeking to sell IOUs on the international credit markets.

They are not. The International Finance Facility for Immunisation raises money to invest in vaccines for the world’s poorest countries. Because it is dependent on countries like France as a guarantor of its funds, it too has felt the wrath of a ratings agency downgrade.

This makes it more expensive for it to borrow money which in turn translates as fewer children getting vaccinated in polio-ridden Pakistani slums. That might sound remote to us but the 2010 polio outbreak in Eastern Europe was traced back to Indian villages. Infectious diseases mastered globalisation long before we did.

It’s a similar story for independent aid organisations in need of cash to rebuild housing in Haiti or fund clean-water projects in Uganda.

Add to that the fact that most ‘rich’ countries seeking to balance their budgets have cut foreign aid spending, and debates on whether Irish children’s allowance should be cut by €10 a month become embarrassing.

There is no simple way to fix all of this. What was can hope for is a better appreciation of the hierarchy of priorities. Should Greece be closing hospitals while buying fighter jets? Should Irish civil servants taking early retirement with gold-plated pensions be protected while children wait more than a year for surgery? Will foreign aid budgets suffer so Europe can afford to prop up out-dated industries?

The era of austerity has taken us to an age of tough choices.

The impact of the ongoing financial crisis in Europe is having a deep impact on patients – and that’s before the possible return of the Drachma which could at least double the relative cost of imported medicines.

The Panhellenic Association of Pharmacists (PAP) says almost half of the country’s 12,000 pharmacies have reported shortages of the most-used medicines.

Drug companies and wholesalers are either out of stock or will not supply medicines for which they will not be reimbursed. Some suppliers have been left without payment for up to two years and have now run out of patience.

As a result, the PAP says their members spend hours on the phone pleading with suppliers and colleagues to provide medicines like aspirin, albuterol and beta-blockers. In some cases, where patients are in dire need, pharmacists’ have resorted to paying for drugs themselves.

Price controls

In an effort to radically cut costs, the Greek government has introduced price controls meaning wholesalers must charge lower prices than last year. As a result, some suppliers are selling their products outside the country where higher prices are still on offer. In addition, pharmacists complain that the government’s fiscal problems have led to lengthy delays in payments to pharmacists and drug manufacturers which have bred cash-flow problems for retailers.

Public health insurers owe pharmacists around €330 million for drugs bought since April, according to Dimitris Karageorgiou, vice-chairman of the PAP, who acknowledged that some pharmacists are demanding upfront patients from patients who must then chase their insurance companies for reimbursement.

The entire supply chain is close to collapse now that some wholesalers are no longer willing to provide pharmacists with extended credit terms for fear of not being paid.

Last year, large drug companies were forced to accept Greek bonds in lieu of cash owed by public hospitals because the government had run out of money. Some firms cut their losses and left the country while others now insist upon payment on delivery rather than issuing invoices.

At the end of the line are patients, particular those with chronic illnesses, who are often unable to pay for medicines on an ongoing basis, yet know that the prospect of an economic upturn is unlikely in the foreseeable future.

So it looks like Europe is asking China to contribute more than €100, 000,000,000 to boost its bailout fund and help save Europe’s single currency. The French President has been delegated the task (nice move, Merkel) of sweet-talking Beijing, Regling, who heads up Europe’s bailout fund,  is in China today working on the detail.

Let there be no surprise that China will extract significant concessions in return for any help it might give. What would Europe do? What about the US? We all act in our own interest so spare us the faux outrage when Beijing leans on Brussels in a couple of key areas:

- China will want Europe to recognise it as a market economy

- It will expect less hand-wringing in Brussels over the value of China’s currency

- It may seek progress on the arms embargo which prevents European companies selling weapons to China

Fair enough. On the first one, China will have market economy status by 2016 anyway under WTO rules. Is it a market economy? Pfff…perhaps not. The government intervenes way too much in its economy, local companies get preferential treatment which makes it hard for foreign firms to compete, the biggest companies in China are quasi-semi-state corporations with strong ties to, and the backing of, government.

Nonetheless, this bargaining chip will expire in 2016 so Europe may as well throw it in the pot now. Every cent of diplomatic currency is needed today – there’s no point saving for a rainy day when it’s bucketing down outside.

Breaking with the US

The second is tricky as it requires breaking ranks with the US by taking a softer approach to the value of the renminbi. This is a serious shift in global power, but China is effectively doing what the US (and European powers) has done for decades – using the fact that it bankrolls or protects large swathes of the globe to buy compliance or silence on a controversial issue. It’s delicate but Europe is not in a position of strength and will have to make these kinds of concessions.

The arms embargo is also awkward. Personally, I despise the arms industry and everything they do. I hate the idea of more weapons being in circulation. But the reality is that China doesn’t even need weapons from foreigners – it can make its own. They just feel offended that a ‘friend’ doesn’t trust them enough to flog them a few fighter jets.

Obviously this all has more to do with US-led support for Taiwan against ‘Communist China’. But that’s from the Red Scare era of global diplomacy and is out of date. Lifting the embaro is something Europe should swallow. China has missiles pointed at Taipei today, it won’t matter a whit if they are allowed buy more from France.

Other potential areas where China will seek ongoing leverage over Europe are its place in international organisations like the IMF, WTO, G20 and UN, and Europe’s tendency to highlight human rights failings in China. The first is a natural progression for a rapidly rising power. Their place in international organisations must change to reflect their status – and it will come at the expense of the status quo. China’s gains will be Europe’s and America’s loss. That’s just the way it goes.

On human rights, it would be shameful for China to use their influence to silence criticism of human rights failings – even if such postering is just an empty gesture by EU leaders for the cameras of European broadcasters. Cede power, take the money, but let’s not abandon European values.

Begging from the poor

In the end we have to realise what we are asking. We want a country with hundreds of millions of very poor people to part with their cash so the pain of Europe’s decline can be minimised and we can maintain something close to our current standards of living.

We lecture China on the morality of their regime’s behaviour in its western provinces but where is the ethical justification for living off the backs of the world’s poor?

How can we have two cars per family, annual holidays, short working weeks, generous welfare safety nets, access to healthcare and medicines, free primary and secondary education and all the rest, when the people lending us the money are trying to hold together a massive two- or three-tier country where the top tier lives like us and the rest are either subsistence farmers or 80-hour-week factory slaves?

Of course, they want something in return. We would.

Read some less preachy, more amusing insights on China here: Beijing for Beginners

The future remains uncertain but key elements of a plan to end the crisis are taking shape.

We already know that Europe’s economic governance will be strengthened. The European Semester and the recently-passed Six Pack mean EU surveillance of national budgets is about to get a whole lot more forensic.

New pan-European financial supervision bodies will play a much more active role in how banks are regulated.

Other ideas in the air include an EU Finance Minister or some kind of Budget Tsar who will have meaningful powers over national parliaments when it comes to matters monetary. The Eurogroup will certainly be beefed up and the ECB’s mandate may be tweaked to make it more like the US Federal Reserve.

Tax harmonisation and other aspects of fiscal integration have also been mooted as Europe attempts to iron out the imbalances at the root of the crisis.

Shot term gain, long term pain

Failure to make these kinds of radical leaps will mean disaster in the near term. But how will citizens feel about it two or three years from now?

Presuming the crisis can be averted, the public will scarcely thank leaders for steering the ship away from the rocks. We will never know how close we came to Armageddon but we will see powers shift from our national parliaments to Brussels where the influence of most Member States appears to have declined of late as the spotlight turned to Paris and Berlin.

When the dust settles, being in the euro will look a lot like living under an IMF programme. Reckless spending will be vetoed and decisions on revenue-raising measures will need the green light from Europe.

So what will happen when, under the much-vaunted economic governance rules, Brussels sends a Member State’s proposed budget back to the national parliament with a note saying “Please try again – this is not good enough”?

They won’t do it unless absolutely necesssary, and they may well be acting in the interests of that country’s citizens, but what thanks will they get? None.

Political opposition to ‘foreign’ influence will rise and the electorate will continue to elect euro-sceptic parties – as they have in Finland and elsewhere. The Europhiles who delivered closer union will lose power.

Ever closer union?

Within an election cycle or two, the political landscape could look a lot different and populist opportunists will win votes by promising to reclaim powers ceded to Brussels during the crisis. England for the English, Finland for the Finnish and all of that.

However, while the road to closer union may ultimately prove unpalatable to voters, there is no choice. Failure to come together now would mean the collapse of the common currency and the European Union, along with the break-up of the single market.

It is difficult to imagine that post-integration backlash won’t lead some Member States to back away from Brussels over the next decade. Yes, this will cause a political crisis – but it’s better to separate that political problem from the currency crisis. Two serious crises spread over a decade will be less disruptive than two serious crises occuring simultaneously.

The coming fiscal union means integration at a pace quicker than most citizens are comfortable with – each for their own reasons. The best chance of limiting the fallout is to help citizens understand the reasoning behind it and to see themselves as part of Europe.

The anti-foreigner backlash can be tamed if citizens come to view Europe as something other than ‘foreign’.

- Day before the summit: EU leaders divided ahead of crunch summit

This one comes with stories of how impossible it will be to come to any agreement and how Obama has been on the phone screaming at Sarkozy to recapitalise French banks

- Night of the summit: EU hails rescue package: ‘Crisis is over’

The usual overblown statements about how total unanimity has been reached and a comprehensive package has been  agreed which would finally put an end to market turbulence.

- Morning after: Analyst unconvinced by EU deal

For this one we get a quote from a fund manager who has shorted the euro and insists the deal doesn’t go far enough and that dark days lie ahead. The euro is doomed, he reckons, and everyone should sell it and buy ‘safe’ currencies from low-debt well-governed nations like the dollar.

The truth will be somewhere in amongst all of this: there will be disagreements on how to proceed, a compromise will be reached which gives everyone a little of what they wanted but makes everyone uneasy, the deal won’t be the end of the crisis but it will help a bit, deleveraging and recapitalising the banking system will continue to be an expensive and painful process – just like fixing the Greek debt problem – but the euro won’t evaporate, nor will the EU sink into the sea.

Your turn: what headlines are your expecting?

#summit4cast

That was then. Now, several non-Eurozone members are getting cold feet. It’s not, say diplomats, that countries like Poland and Bulgaria have lost faith in the currency, but they are uncomfortable about the erosion of fiscal independence. The fiscal and politican union that may emerge from the ongoing currency crisis is not what they signed up for.

At the same time, there is great anxiety among EU countries outside the eurozone that the nature of the Union is being altered without their input. Poland, which still says it will join the euro when the time is right, wants a seat at the table when the Eurogroup meets.

Meanwhile, smaller countries like Lithuania, Latvia and even Denmark are beginning to wonder whether they will effectively be forced to join the single currency or risk isolation on the edge of a more integrated Eurozone.

UK needs the Eurozone

Even UK officials are vexed at the relegation of non-Eurozone members to the second division. Major decisions which affect London, on a financial transcactions tax, for example, are debated between Sarkozy and Merkel.

David Cameron has the painfully delicate task of demanding to be at the table in Brussels while an anti-Euro rump of his own party gleefully watches the euro circling the drain – as though the currency’s demise wouldn’t affect the wise Europeans who use Sterling.

UK diplomats know London’s sense of splendid isolation is grossly misplaced. Ireland imports more from the UK than Brazil, Russia, India and China combined, and Europe’s single market is the destination for most of Britain’s wares. But try telling that to Tory MPs who want a referendum on EU membership.

Gary Finnegan writes the EU View column in Business & Finance magazine, a Dublin-based publication

After protracted negotiations, MEPs and the European Council – which represents EU Member States – came to an agreement on the so-called “Six Pack” economic governance package.

The deal promises closer surveillance of national budgets, with fines for those in breach of good practice. It’s a souped-up version of the Stability and Growth Pact which, as outgoing ECB chief Jean-Claude Trichet noted recently, was undermined by the refusal of larger countries to accept sanction when their budgets were out of kilter.

The revamped supervision system is in addition to the European Semester introduced earlier this year which sees national finance ministries submit the broad outline of their budgets to the European Commission in the first half of each year.

As if that were not enough, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy is due to present the October EU Summit with still more plans for fiscal integration. This could flesh-out ideas on having something akin to an EU Treasury or even a more powerful European Finance Tsar.

Van Rompuy’s own role and that of Eurogroup chair Jean-Claude Juncker will also be better refined as part of efforts to fill in the gaps left by the architects of the common currency.

One thing is for certain: Irish politicians alluding to the need to get through the EU/IMF programme, in order to emerge from the other end with sovereignty restored, are in for a shock. They (and their electorate) may scarcely recognise Europe’s economic landscape by 2013 – save for the fact that it will resemble life under the Troika.

Whatever about countries like Ireland, Portugal and Greece whose various mistakes left them dependent on the kindness of strangers, the other 24 Member States are growing increasingly unease about enhanced supervision of their budgets.

A degree of IMF-style supervision could soon be a condition of Eurozone membership.

Gary Finnegan writes the EU View column in Business & Finance magazine, a Dublin-based publication