Following a Dutch World Cup soccer victory against Germany in 2002 the Dutch are emboldened to walk out of European economic and monetary union.
Implausible? Perhaps. But Rabobank researcher Bernard Walschots says that prudent banks, stress-testing their future portfolios against low-probability event risk, shouldn't exclude the possibility of an Emu bust-up either soon after January 1999 or some years on.
Emu could look less rosy to the next generation of politicians, driven by a discontented electorate. But the Maastricht Treaty doesn't provide an exit route, Walschots told delegates at Euromoney's International Bond Congress in London. The birth of the euro would somehow have to go into reverse, with countries recreating national currencies. Which country is prepared for this and has a stock of new notes and coins at the ready?
A parallel nightmare would be the redenomination of bank deposits. Would euros deposited with Italian banks suddenly turn into lire, even at branches in Frankfurt and Paris? One thing is certain: the political and economic cost of such a reversal would be enormous. "If enough people understand the dire implications of a crash," says Walschots, "it could - paradoxically - help to limit the possibility of such an event."