Adam Ludlow

Greece isn’t the only country that wants to leave the euro

With EU budget talks breaking down on Monday night, there was, for a time, an outside chance that Greece would leave the euro. Worryingly for EU leaders, there are plenty of people across the rest of the continent who would like to do the same.

As research by ComRes for New Direction Foundation across nine European countries shows, significant minorities would like to return to domestic currencies, although the majority of people in major Eurozone countries would like to retain the euro.

While the German Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, has been doling out the conditions to Greece about what it will have to do to stay in the euro, one in three people from his own country want to return to the Deutschmark. The same proportion of Italians and French would like to see a return to Lira and the Franc. By comparison, people are most supportive of keeping their current currency in Britain and Sweden, countries with their own national tender and monetary supply.

Public attitudes may also have put pressure on the current negotiations.

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