Publication

The crisis has revealed the serious asymmetry of unpunished fiscal profligacy in euro-area member countries and painful austerity in euro-area applicant countries. Zsolt Darvas argues that the stakes are now very high and euro-area members ought to change the entry criteria to make them more reasonable. For instance, he believes that there is a contradiction between the huge loans granted from the EU and elsewhere to support Latvia in maintaining its exchange-rate peg and the denial of Latvia‘s euro-area prospects by EU officials.