Generally speaking, access to cheap debt is seen as a uniformly good thing.
But this is the same as drug dealer saying their dead customer was not responsible enough. Yeah it true, but some people just are not responsible for their own actions and the dealer was happily benefiting all the time from him
Except that the dead customer still owes 590 billion to (mostly) the drug dealer mentioned above and won't be able to pay it.
And the goods delivered were not drugs but things that usually don't alter your way of thinking (like cars, machines, ...), even less if we're talking about a group of people (like the government or a country of 60mn people)
Oh and there was also trading (i.e. delivering goods back), so Italy is not only consumer but also producer.
I'm not pointing the "overspending" finger either, just saying, countries should take responsibility for their actions, not complain at the enablers.
What am I missing?
Which is why the weaker currencies were a much better fit for Southern European countries. Creditors would expect a high interest, due to high inflation, thus limiting the politician's ability to borrow money.
I do feel northern Europe (especially Germany) is partially to blame, since they were very much interesting in increasing their exports and the Euro was the enabler.
This does not absolve the politicians, nor the electorate.
They both share the blame. If a bank clerk keeps giving loans to a drug addict something is definitely off. Especially if it suggest settling the debts via organ sale (austerity).
At the same time it was made much easier (at lower interest rates) for southern European countries to borrow money from northern European countries and other markets, as creditors would feel more secure that they'd get their money back. Creditors would assume the northern European countries would bail-out southern European countries in case of problems.
And that caused southern European countries to lend more which might benefit a country like Germany again. These countries could lend more easily to buy luxury cars, for example.