What I find strange about it there was almost a universal consensus among economists that the Euro couldn't work. Yes, exactly. It's strange because of the n

What I find strange about it there was almost a universal consensus among economists that the Euro couldn't work. Yes, exactly. It's strange because of the near "universal consensus" you cite on the effect of currency union without fiscal policy union. And it's possible to have a real economics debate about this topic now because this topic hasn't been politicized - it's almost purely an academic debate without the (primarily right-wing) agenda-driven media sources weighing in. I also find it strange that what happened was what economists were predicting-- but I have a guess as to why currency union happened anyway. The architects of the euro thought a single currency would draw the EU together and would, a few years later, end up with coordinated fiscal policy. But that didn't happen, and a currency crisis hit, damaging the euro, before fiscal policies became coordinated. (Given political situations, it seems almost impossible that fiscal policy will be unified now.) The linked post (and book) are good because they use the Greece-Germany situation as an example to highlight the bigger issues of fiscal policy and it crashing into domestic policies and politics. Pretty fascinating, really.