You mean in the Eurozone? There's plenty to gain from being in the EU.

True, but at this point joining the EU pretty much involves consenting to adopt the Euro. Only Denmark and the UK have an opt-out afaik, all the other EU countries are obliged to join

Although they don't seem to be in any rush - only 19 of 28 EU countries have joined the Euro according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurozone .

The Eurozone isn't necessarily that bad.

The main thing is that you can't tax by printing currency anymore which is a really easy way to levy taxes. That means you have to have an efficient taxation apparatus, tax the rich and poor equitably and be very careful with borrowing.

Greek's problem is that it isn't particularly strong in any of those and thus isn't really suited for being part of the Eurozone yet.

As it stands, keeping the 'poorer' countries in the Eurozone seems like a very bad idea. The main reason being that -unlike the USA- people in e.g. The Netherlands don't feel a connection with people from Spain and vice versa. People in the northern European countries don't even feel a connection with people in the countries close to them, even though the cultures are much closer aligned (in terms of sobriety, work-ethos, etc…)

This I think is the main difference with the USA. The USA also has richer and poorer stats, but because of the shared language, history and culture, people in both the richer and the poorer states feel like a US citizen.

I don't think anyone is interested in forcing countries to leave the EU if it's decided that they will leave the Euro.

No, Sweden does not have such an exception, they are required to join when they fulfil the requirements.

They just exercise some creativity by making sure they don't meet the requirements.

Sorry, I deleted that part of my post (It read "UK, Denmark and Sweden").

No need to apologize. Especially since it's close enough to an exception to remember it as such. :-)

Remember: "There is no way to leave the EU once you are in." Or the Euro. Or the Eurozone. Or the EEC. Or the European Continent. Well, unless you have a really big motor engine.

"Unless Germany wants you out", I guess. The terms of the deal for Greece have been pretty onerous, you lose control of your currency with no equivalent upside. Sure, there are plenty of advantages to being in the EU, but the disadvantages seem bigger.

If Germany actually wanted Greece out, they would have been kicked out 3-5 years ago. Germany desperately wants Greece in, why do you think they keep negotiating?

> The terms of the deal for Greece have been pretty onerous, you lose control of your currency with no equivalent upside.

No upside? What do you call a decade of easy access to super cheap credit? Also, these terms are not unique to Greece, no other Euro-zone country has control over it's currency.

> What do you call a decade of easy access to super cheap credit?

A poison pill. It's like giving free booze to an alcoholic. It's certainly not kindness.

Exactly what gizmo said. It's the super-cheap credit that got us here...

That's easy enough to say in retrospect. The greek government actively and aggressively sought out membership, to the point of cooking the books, then eagerly availed themselves of the credit.

being a member of the eurozone and being a member of the EU is still a difference.

as the latter: Greece benefitted quite a bit from EU subsidies since joining. you can argue about if the same holds true for joining the eurozone.

Euro is the new USA.