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'Euro was a mistake,' says Nobel Prize-winning economist

The IMF working paper called Fiscal Politics in the Euro Area analyzes data from 19 countries participating in the eurozone over 1999–2015.

It reveals the public-debt-to-GDP ratio of the euro area as a whole increased from an average of less than 60 percent of GDP in the early 1990s to more than 90 percent in 2015.

According to the EU statistical service Eurostat, the new debt is more than fifty percent higher than the maximum allowed level of 60 percent determined by the Stability and Growth Pact, a set of rules designed to make sure EU members “pursue sound public finances and coordinate their fiscal policies.”

The IMF study shows that while the euro was introduced to be the common currency within the EU, the member states have been struggling to maintain confidence in it since the start of the sovereign debt crisis of 2009.

Some of them were struggling to repay or finance their government debt, mainly because of increased public spending and slow growth. Previously, when all of them had their own currencies, the governments could have devalued the currency to resolve the situation.