Policies under the Blow of the Crisis

The incomplete monetary unification created a new situation, which governments and economic operators could only comprehend with time. This was particularly the case in those countries that had previously used depreciation as a means of solving problems of competitiveness. In noncompetitive sectors, the transition to the new common currency created favourable conditions for businesses for adjusting prices upwards in the new currency. In the economically favourable conditions of the first years of monetary unification, wages and salaries could be adjusted upwards in countries that had lower levels, often independently of productivity. A kind of convergence to the highest and most expensive was led by a Eurozone demonstration effect that the common currency could carry on. The most active in this sense were primarily economic operators in vulnerable countries.