Robert Rubin praises, as ‘the only effective way forward’ (‘ECB is right to ask for more action’, today’s FT), the ECB’s insistence on continued austerity as the condition of further financial assistance to the peripheral economies.

This seems badly mistaken. The chief essential condition of any durable solution to the EZ crisis, socially, politically, financially and economically, is that the peripheral economies are enabled to return to positive growth. This will not happen while they share the same currency as Germany; more austerity makes this even less achievable.

Giles Conway-Gordon