I see many posts/ features in mainstream media about the Euro crisis and the countries that now need rescuing or else the entire EU will collapse (which is true, by the way).
What I rarely see addressed is how these countries that now need rescuing are actually Southern countries that were shoved into a continent wide market economy without taking into account any of the differences in working ethics. This market economy was set up under the gross assumption that everyone would want to be like France, Germany, The Netherlands, UK, etc. That the working cultures in those countries (and the prosperity afforded by said working cultures) could easily be replicated elsewhere and that the people of say, Spain, Italy, Greece, would have the same economic/ social aspirations as a person in a small village in The Netherlands or Germany. Nothing could be further from the truth. Not only are their aspirations and cultures very different but so are their working traditions.
I am fully aware that nobody put a gun into Greece’s head to join the EU and there was autonomy in the decision making process, etc. However, nobody anticipated (and quite possibly they wouldn’t have even agreed if they had realized this beforehand), that being part of the EU also required a massive cultural shift. That in order to belong, these countries would have to become more like their Northern counterparts, which are the dominant force, and less like Southern cone cultures (which is what, at their core, they are).
Now, Northern European media is having a field day about the “lazy” Greeks, Italians, Spanish, Portuguese, who “just don’t like to work” and who are refusing further adjustments. I would say they are refusing the demands for a deep cultural shift and the adoption of economic measures that do not spell out the benefits of said shift. People talk about globalization as something that only affects the Global South (it does), but they mostly forget to apply the same critique to how it affects Southern Europe and what is now expected of them.
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