There is a European precedent for the current crisis, although it is not one the continent likes to be recall. A paper called Till Debt Do Us Part, by Bob Swarup and Dario Perkins of Lombard Street research, says there are direct parallels between Europe now and Europe in the 1920s, only with the roles reversed. Today it is Germany that is imposing austerity on the weak countries on the euro's periphery, at a time when they have no easy way out due to their membership of a fixed exchange-rate system.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/mar/24/cyprus-bailout-lehman-demise
