The original players behind the single currency claim astonishing sleights of hand have brought the euro to its knees.

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But it wasn’t the behaviour of the eurozone’s southern members that first plunged the euro into crisis. There was, from the start, a way for the EU to police the economies of member states. It was called the Stability and Growth Pact, and it wasn’t Italy or Greece that torpedoed it; it was Germany.

In 2003, France and Germany had both overspent, and their budget deficits exceeded the 3 per cent limit to which they were bound. The Commission – then led by the former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi – had the power to fine them. But finance ministers voted not to enforce the rules, which were designed to protect the stability of the euro.