If you want to understand why the euro is in such trouble forget, for a moment, debt and sovereign bonds – and take a look at the bank notes. The images on euro notes are of imaginary buildings. While national currencies typically feature real people and places – George Washington on the dollar bill, the Bolshoi theatre on the Russian rouble – European identity is too fragile for that. Selecting a place or a hero associated with one country would have been too controversial. So the European authorities chose vague images that represented everywhere and nowhere.
如果你想理解欧元为何陷入了这么大的麻烦，那么，请暂时忘掉债务和主权债券的事情，看看各国的纸币吧。欧元纸币上的图案是虚构的建筑物。一国货币上通常会印有真实的人物和地方，比如1美元纸币上是乔治•华盛顿(George Washington)，100俄罗斯卢布上印的是莫斯科大剧院(Bolshoi theatre)，但还没有哪一个真实的人物或地方，能够唤起欧盟的身份认同感。如果选择某个国家的一个地方或一位民族英雄，可能引起太大争议。因此，欧盟当局选择了一些空泛的图案，可以代表所有地方，也可能什么也代表不了。