There are constant bank runs. The bond markets panic, and governments along its southern perimeter need bail-outs every few years. Unemployment has sky-rocketed and growth remains sluggish, no matter how many hundreds of billions of printed money the European Central Bank throws at the economy.

We are all tediously aware of how the euro-zone has been a financial disaster. But it is now starting to become clear that it is a social disaster as well. What often gets lost in the discussion of growth rates, bail-outs and banking harmonisation is that the eurozone is turning into a poverty machine.

As its economy stagnates, millions of people are falling into genuine hardship. Whether it is measured on a relative or absolute basis, rates of poverty have soared across Europe, with the worst results found in the area covered by the single currency.

There could not be a more shocking indictment of the currency’s failure, or a more potent reminder that living standards will only improve once the euro is either radically reformed or taken apart.

Eurostat, the statistical agency of the European Union, has published its latest findings on the numbers of people “at risk of poverty or social exclusion”, comparing 2008 and 2015. Across the 28 members, five countries saw really significant rises compared with the year of the financial crash. In Greece, 35.7pc of people now fall into that category, compared with 28.1pc back in 2008, a rise of 7.6 percentage points. Cyprus was up by 5.6 points, with 28.7pc of people now categorised as poor. Spain was up 4.8 points, Italy up 3.2 points and even Luxembourg, hardly known for being at risk of deprivation, up three points at 18.5pc. 

It was not so bleak everywhere. In Poland, the poverty rate went down from 30.5pc to over 23pc. In Romania, Bulgaria, and Latvia, there were large falls compared to the 2008 figures – in Romania for example the percentage was down by seven points to 37pc.

What was the difference between the countries where poverty went up dramatically, and those where it went down? You guessed it. The largest increases were all countries within the single currency. But the decreases were all in countries outside it.

David Fuller's view

I receive the occasional very polite email from Europeans in the EU who generally say they like the service but couldn’t I post some more balanced comments on the EU, including both sides of the story? Well, I previously posted a few emails by an interesting multinational subscriber who for a while was a PR rep of sorts for the EU, until he too became disillusioned.    

Actually, and this may surprise a few of you, I genuinely wish the EU had turned out to be a great success.  That would have been wonderful for Europe and good for the global economy.  I always felt that Europe could have been a very successful free trade area of independent sovereign states, which is what I voted for in the mid-1970s. 

Unfortunately, that proved to be a Trojan Horse for ‘ever more Europe’ and a ruinous single currency without the Federal State, which Europe’s leaders actually decided they did not want.  The rest you know and there is no need for me to rake over those coals. Sadly, the EU is the biggest tragedy for the European Continent since WWII.   

Here is a PDF of Matthew Lynn's report.