The euro as a shield in stormy times Referring to a particularly negative episode in Austrian and in world financial history, Paul Krugman correctly stated: “Smaller countries – like Austria in 1931 – may once have been at the mercy of financial tides, unable to control their economic destiny” 5 .
Now, Austria has not become a bigger country than it was in those unhappy days, but something else has changed in our favor since then: we are now members of the European Union and part of the euro area.