[adventured]

Even worse: Germany, an already very strong nation, gets to free ride the Euro for its export machine at the cost of its Eurozone rivals (and other competitors in Europe broadly). If Germany had its own currency, it would be considerably more expensive than the Euro is today, which would make German exports more expensive. As you note, countries like Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal would do better because their exports would be cheaper under less expensive national currencies (unique to their individual economic circumstances), enabling them to compete better against Germany's exports. This artificial prop can be seen in the fact that Germany has the world's largest trade surplus as a percentage of its economic output.