Not a euro crisis, but a debt crisis

German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned critics that the eurozone isn't facing "a euro crisis, but a debt crisis." Ambrose Evans-Pritchard provides a correction:

Total levels of private and sovereign debt in the eurozone are lower than in the UK, the US, and far lower than in Japan. Greece’s debt levels are around 250pc of GDP, at the lower end of the developed world. Spain’s sovereign debt is admirably modest at around 65pc. Italy’s household debt level is the envy of the rich world. It has a primary budget surplus. Italy has many problems, but the budget deficit is not one of them. So why is there such a destructive and long-festering crisis in the eurozone? Why have three countries required an EU-IMF bail-out? Why is the ECB having to shore the debt markets of five countries — soon to be six — with direct bond purchases, including Spain and Italy? Not because of debt, except in the most superficial sense. 

(Video: You may remember, I posted about this yesterday.)