Preparing for Eurogeddon
Analysis
BBC
4.6 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 13 February 2012
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Europe thinks the unthinkable - what happens if the Eurozone splits. What would happen to the banking sector, how would a new currency be put in place, can contagion be halted, and more fundamentally could the Euro survive? Policymakers across Europe are putting their contingency plans together. We reveal what some of the preparations may be. Reporter Chris Bowlby runs through some of the scenarios of what may happen if a country were to withdraw, and crucially what would happen next.
Contributors: Dawn Holland, National Institute of Economic and Social Research; Aristotle Kallis, Political Scientist; David Marsh, author "The History of the Euro"; David Lascelles, senior fellow of the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation; Mark Crickett De La Rue; and Larry Hatheway, UBS
Producer: Kavita Puri.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.7 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
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| 0:39.0 | For more information, please go to the Radio 4 website. |
| 0:42.0 | This is Analysis. I'm Chris Bolby and in preparing for |
| 0:46.6 | Eurogedon I ask what would happen if the single currency cannot survive intact? |
| 0:53.4 | It would have to happen suddenly, because if it were announced that it was going to happen next |
| 0:58.4 | week, everybody would pull all of their money out of Greece and put it somewhere else. |
| 1:03.8 | I think that if it is an overnight thing, something that comes out of nowhere, |
| 1:07.6 | and it's more or less a last ditch attempt to solve a problem that cannot solve itself if you like. |
| 1:13.3 | I think there will be a lot of people who will be out in the streets wanting to exact |
| 1:18.1 | revenge. |
| 1:19.1 | It is the danger that the whole edifice could start to unravel and what starts in southern Europe could actually end up in the Alps or even on the Rhine. |
| 1:30.0 | Nightmare visions of Europe's future. |
| 1:33.0 | Summits are held, governments and financiers haggle. |
| 1:36.0 | Optimistic noises are made in public about keeping the Eurozone intact. |
| 1:40.0 | That's still the official ambition. |
| 1:43.0 | But there's been a very different, much more private policy conversation recently |
... |
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