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The Interview Podcast
Otmar Issing – European Central Bank Board, 1998 – 2006

Otmar Issing – European Central Bank Board, 1998 – 2006

The Interview vor 14 Jahren

Otmar Issing in conversation with Shaun Ley - does he think the euro can be saved?

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Can the euro be saved?

Europe's leaders think so; its central bank says there's no limit
to the money it's prepared to spend to defend it.

But is their solution in danger of destroying not just a currency
but Europe's union, too? Otmar Issing fears so.

As one of the most senior officials when the European Central
Bank was founded, he helped bring the euro into being.

Until this year he advised Germany's Angela Merkel and he remains
one of Europe's most influential economic voices.

When the euro was being planned, Otmar Issing believed that
political union was essential.

Now he fears that centralising power in Brussels and Frankfurt
and sharing financial risk could provoke a public backlash that
would wreck both the currency and the continent.