Then the car dealers and repair outlets in Belgium started to discriminate against these cars because they were not bought in Belgium. When going to a garage for maintenance, the car was put on a waiting list. In practice, non-tariff barriers were put up in response to the exchange rate effect. And that was jeopardising the very principle of the internal market.
You would say then that for countries most hit by the crisis, such as Portugal or Greece, it would have been even worse if they were not in the euro? I think so. For small open economies, exchange rates can be very destabilising. That is why smaller economies usually try to peg their exchange rates to a stable currency.