Ottawa Citizen: "British embassies in the eurozone have been told to draw up plans to help British expatriates through the collapse of the single currency, amid renewed fears for Italy and Spain."

  • Jerril

    Ottawa Citizen, not Ottowa Citizen.

    I know we don’t pronounce it very clearly, but if you want to go with the phonetic valley accent, I’d do “Oddowa” or “Oddawa” instead :)

  • paulleader

    Sounds sensible, given that there have already been full blown riots in Greece (complete with deaths)

    This is what embassies are supposed to do, prepare for the worst.  That doesn’t mean they think it’s definitely going to happen, but significant civil unrest in parts of Europe is a possibility.  And if the banking system suffers another collapse you could have a lot of people stuck overseas with no access to funds.

    If you only go though life being prepared for things you know are going to happen, you’ll spend a lot of your time being surprised.

    The motto of all governments (and everyone right now) should be “prepare for the worst and hope for the best”.

  • CSBD

    Evacuating citizens from the Eurozone due to “riots”?  When they say riot, do they mean “Riot” with a capital R like the “Riots” in Libya or the ones starting in Syria?

    I seriously doubt the Italians and Spanish will be stringing up the rich and foreigners if their currency collapses.
    The first thing they will do is run and try to spend whatever money they have.
    After that, they will start looting things.

    When that fails, be prepared for emails that begin with “Hello, I am an Italian (or Spanish) Prince. You may have heard about our economic collapse. Good news for you, my father stole billions of Euros before the collapse and hid the money in the form of Dollars in a secret account.  If you help me move it to your bank account, I will give you half of it.

    Signed, Your new best friend

    • paulleader

      I wouldn’t be so sure. They might not string up the bankers, but it could get messy.

      Wikipedia lists four deaths from the 2010-2011 riots, and over 270 injuries.

      • CSBD

        I live near Detroit… 4 deaths would not even make the paper.

        • paulleader

          Remind me not to move to Detroit. 

          Not sure what four people dying in a riot not getting covered in the papers says more about, Detroit or the papers there.

    • Stooge

      You think that tourists – the discerning mugger’s victims of choice the world over – somehow become less attractive as targets during civil unrest?

  • http://twitter.com/ManekiNico Maneki Nico

    Why did I know this was picked up from the Daily Telegraph?

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8917077/Prepare-for-riots-in-euro-collapse-Foreign-Office-warns.html

    If this story had been home-grown, it would have been part of a 7-part series.*

    *The locals will get that joke.