“A monument to collective madness, a burning building with no exits”. Demonstrates a certain metaphorical ability William Hague, Foreign Minister of Great Britain, dedicating this lapidary slating to none other than the single European currency.
Interviewed by the periodical The Spectator, Hague gave it his all: “It was madness to create this system – he said -. But it's there and we have to deal with it". And again, referring to Greece: "I described the euro as a building on fire with no exits and for some countries it proved to be so".
Immediately after this outburst of spontaneity, the conservative minister had second thoughts, trying as a good diplomat to tone down the tone: "There may be buildings where you try to put out fires or create more space. Maybe I'm drawing too much on these analogies, but the euro is a building that was built without exits and thus abandoning it is something physically difficult. For Greeks, Italians or Portuguese, staying in the euro means having to accept some big changes, while for Germans it means having to resign themselves to subsidizing these countries for a long time, perhaps forever”.
