Naill Ferguson, a history professor at Harvard University, said in his interview to Bloomberg TV that the euro zone has become a kind of government-killing machine: those policymakers who have been in charge during the financial crisis are now being punished. This applies not only to the policymakers of the periphery known as PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain), but also to the core, particularly, Germany. In his view, this process is going to continue and this is a very troubling situation with the implications for the whole global economy.

The professor recalls the experience of the Latin Monetary Union in the late 19th century that died a slow death mainly because of Italian deficits. Ferguson has also expected that it would be Italy to drive the euro zone off the cliff. The Problems have actually begun in Greece, Ireland and Portugal threatening to spread to Spain. Now, however, Italy is in the frame, so the economists say that it’s necessary to talk not about PIGS but about PIIGS in order to make room for Italy alongside Ireland.

As the political situation deteriorates, there will be more of True Finn type parties in the core and the North that urge to stop bailing out South and West, while in the periphery people will keep complaining about the masochistic austerity measures which these countries are conducting.

According to Ferguson, the dangerous idea of leaving the euro zone is starting to be regarded as politically credible one and the tensions in the region will escalate.