Today, the single currency is shared by 19 countries and more than 300 million people, which in my eyes makes it a success story. That being said, it has not always been plain sailing. In the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008, the euro area slid into a financial crisis of its own.
This was compounded in 2010 when Greece entered into a sovereign debt crisis, triggering a sudden loss of confidence in other member states which eventually brought the euro area to the brink of collapse. Extensive rescue packages by the governments along with non-standard measures taken by the ECB helped to calm the markets and prevented the crisis from escalating.