Are Cypriots Second-Class Citizens?

Little Cyprus, with all of a million citizens, may be the straw that breaks the 16-nation eurozone’s back:

The willingness of Cypriot lawmakers to defy Brussels and vote down their proposal sets a precedent that will rally anti-austerity and anti-euro forces throughout southern Europe.

Mainstream parties in Greece and Italy and Spain that have toed the Brussels’ line will have to stiffen their spines or see their support eroded even further.

Most important, though, is that southern Europeans now have the clearest evidence so far that certain northern European countries view them as second-class citizens.

All eurozone members are equal, of course. But some are more equal than others.

Snark aside — that’s true. German taxpayers have already been fleeced, because it’s their savings and their national budget, paying for much of the bailouts of the EU’s southern periphery.

Before that however, souther EU workers were the ones getting fleeced by German corporations, as the too-strong euro kept them even less able to compete with more-productive workers in Germany and the north.

And before that, the Germans had to give up their rock-solid Deutschmark, and good chunks of their national sovereignty, as the price for reunification.

In other words, the euro was a giant massive clusterfudge right from the start.