Came across this article in Tamil Thughlak (Nov 3, 2010) magazine issue.

Because of the tax laws, no border or other problems between member countries, continous march of economic development etc., Euro made a strong currency and it exceeded US$ by as high as 23%.
But only a few weeks back, its slide became apparent.
The reasons are attributed to
1)On October 4, the Danube river was severely poisoned by red aluminium waste from a chemical plant in Hungary which had saved the waste on the river banks to the tune of several million cubic feet.. In the accident 9 people were killed and more than 100 badly injured and has caused drinking water problem to 7 countries.
2) The sudden decision of French President Sarkozy to increase the retirement age and his failure to control the illegal activites of the immigrants to France, there was countrywide strike scrippling normal life. As a result the train from Brussels (capital of EU), to London did not run for a few days, which according to experts is symbolic of the collapse of the Union.
3) Angela Merkel the German President strongly criticised the activites of about 4 million immigrants who have sought political asylum in Germany, but had actually come there for economic reasons. As a consequence, attacks on immigrants from Turkey, Greece etc, by right wing rogues have increased putting the Union on question mark.
4) The same Angela Merkel, is also against bailing out by spending to the tune of 11 lac crores, countries like Spain and Greece which have gone bankrupt.
5) The increasing political clout of organisations like Greenpeace, which have campaigned and created awareness about pollution from manufacture of poisonous chemicals and profiteering by chemical factories, bombs not defused but lying along river banks and forests etc.
With reasons like the above it is feared that the Euro may vanish along with the Union.

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Slide doesn't mean vanish. Of course these reasons do effect negatively ... for some time before things goes back to normal.

Hi,
In fact the current political initiatives are to make europe more cohesive.
There are changes being planned to lisbon treaty to make a permanent european stability fund which the european memeber states facing financial difficulties can access to address their budget woes.
the PIIGS...viz portugal,italy,ireland,Greece and Spain have very high budgetry deficits and various austerity measures are on the way which would definately affect living standards.The idea is to bring deficits to under 3% of the GDP by 2014.
The fact that europe is more of a financial/economical union rather than political union has its drawbacks and it shows by the way Europe takes time in taking measures to respond to markets.
Hopefully next year will bring in growth to european countries and US....
which affects economic growth and financial stability all over the world.