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.

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It gets worse. "At risk of poverty" is defined as living on less than 60pc of the national median income. But that median income has itself fallen over the last seven years, because most countries inside the eurozone have yet to recover from the crash. In Greece, the median income has dropped from 10,800 euros a year to 7,500 now... people are getting both relatively and absolutely poorer.

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The EU set itself a target of significantly reducing the key measures of poverty by 2020. It is failing miserably. Even worse, it is becoming clear that one of its own main policies, the creation of the euro, and the botched, half-hearted rescue packages that have just about held the thing together, are largely responsible.

... in the end, the financial crisis does not matter that much. It can be fixed with bail-outs and by printing more money. Even if it can't, it just means some banks and investment funds will be worse off. But the fact that poverty levels are rising so fast in what were prosperous countries is shocking.