This illustrates the problem with the common currency union -- deep down Europeans still harbor resentment and anger (they hate each other) over WW II. There is no way the Euro holds together over the next decade. Way too much stacked against it.
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Axis occupation of Greece during World War II >>
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ATHENS, Feb 18 (Reuters) - Greek opposition lawmakers said on Thursday that Germans should pay reparations for their World War Two occupation of Greece before criticising the country over its yawning fiscal deficits.
"How does Germany have the cheek to denounce us over our finances when it has still not paid compensation for Greece's war victims?" Margaritis Tzimas, of the main opposition New Democracy party, told parliament. "There are still Greeks weeping for their lost brothers," the conservative lawmaker said during a debate on a bill to clean up the country's discredited statistical service. Chancellor Angela Merkel's government has so far deflected appeals to promise aid to heavily indebted Greece, despite fears that failure to help Athens could threaten the euro. Merkel's stance is backed by opinion polls showing that a vast majority of Germans oppose a bailout, and Germany's biggest selling daily Bild has lambasted Greece as a nation of lazy cheats who should be "thrown out of the euro on their ear". But Greek lawmakers from three left-wing and conservative opposition parties said Germans had no right to claim the moral high ground. ---