The euro fell briefly below $1.19 yesterday. There is nothing surprising or exceptional about that, the common currency has been drifting steadily downwards against the dollar for a number of, by-now, pretty well known reasons - better economic performance in the US, a growing interest rate differential between the ECB and the Fed, political issues [...]

The papers this morning seem to be all full of ‘gloomy’ articles whose principal theme is that Europe has finally been plunged into a grave crisis by this weeks summit.
“People will tell you next that Europe is not in a crisis,” Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who holds the EU presidency, said after [...]

Bloomberg’s Mathew Lynn has been pretty consistently skeptical about the workability of the common currency. Personally I find it difficult to disagree with the following:
“The euro, the common currency shared by 12 EU nations, will weaken considerably as Europe enters a long period of political instability. Recriminations from the collapse of the constitution will be [...]

In a post which appeared earlier this week Tobias asks us whether, given some of the possible consequences of a French “non”, it might not be reasonable to ’scare’ voters a little by spelling out some of the potential fallout which might follow a French rejection of the Constitution Treaty.
Perhaps the phrasing is unfortunate, [...]