Europe: What History Can Explain About Greek Crisis

Oh, dear!

If Greece makes it through the current political crisis and stays in the euro zone, one useful case study is Germany's reunification, which suggests that the adjustment could take decades, not years, and involve mass emigration, billions of euros more in fiscal transfers and the rise of fringe parties in Greece as well as in the countries that have to foot the bill.

Like the former East Germany, Greece suffers from a crippling competitiveness gap and is locked into the euro. East Germans were priced out of the labor market because the value of the Deutsche mark reflected Western, not Eastern, productivity levels. About 14,000 businesses were shut down and four million jobs lost in the first five years after formal reunification, in 1990. Unemployment eventually peaked at more than 20% in 2005.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, in 1989, more than 2 million of the 16 million people living in the East have moved West. Long-term unemployment and wage depression bolstered xenophobic parties and the Left Party, which grew from the former East German Communist Party and hopes to reach the national government in 2013.

More than two decades later, living standards have converged, although they remain about 20% lower in the East with unemployment in the Eastern part at nearly twice the Western average.

And this was within one nation with the same language, perfect mobility and the fiscal transfers missing in the euro zone: German taxpayers financed more than €1.7 trillion, or about $2.17 trillion, at current exchange rates, with the "solidarity surcharge" to pay for modernizing the former East Germany.

But ...

... if it does not and Greece leaves the euro zone, the diplomat added, the cost could be even higher.

For more, see What History Can Explain About Greek Crisis by Katrin Bennhold, May 21, 2012 at NYTimes.com.