Editing Euro (section)

====Effect on interest rates====
[[File:Long-term interest rates of eurozone countries since 1993.png|thumb|upright=1.35|Secondary market yields of government bonds with maturities of close to 10 years]]

As of January 2014, and since the introduction of the euro, interest rates of most member countries (particularly those with a weak currency) have decreased. Some of these countries had the most serious sovereign financing problems.

The effect of declining interest rates, combined with excess liquidity continually provided by the ECB, made it easier for banks within the countries in which interest rates fell the most, and their linked sovereigns, to borrow significant amounts (above the 3% of GDP budget deficit imposed on the eurozone initially) and significantly inflate their public and private debt levels.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.investmentweek.co.uk/investment-week/opinion/2076100/redwood-origins-euro-crisis |title=Redwood: The origins of the euro crisis |publisher=Investmentweek.co.uk |date=3 June 2011 |access-date=16 September 2011}}</ref> Following the [[2008 financial crisis]], governments in these countries found it necessary to bail out or nationalise their privately held banks to prevent systemic failure of the banking system when underlying hard or financial asset values were found to be grossly inflated and sometimes so nearly worthless there was no liquid market for them.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ip-global.org/2011/02/01/farewell-fair-weather-euro/ |title=Farewell, Fair-Weather Euro &#124; IP&nbsp;– Global-Edition |publisher=Ip-global.org |access-date=16 September 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110317161013/http://www.ip-global.org/2011/02/01/farewell-fair-weather-euro/ |archive-date=17 March 2011 }}</ref> This further increased the already high levels of public debt to a level the markets began to consider unsustainable, via increasing government bond interest rates, producing the ongoing European sovereign-debt crisis.