What is most problematic about the eurozone’s situation is that unemployment in some of the crisis countries – Spain and Greece – remains above 20%. These countries are trying to achieve a difficult “internal devaluation” – that is, a reduction in their domestic unit labor costs relative to the eurozone’s stronger economies – while the overall eurozone surplus caused by Northern Europe puts upward pressure on the exchange rate, undermining their competitiveness outside the monetary union.
欧元区局面问题最大的地方在于一些危机国——西班牙和希腊——的失业率仍在20%以上。这些国家正在试图实现艰难的“内部贬值”，即降低其相对于欧元区坚挺经济体的国内单位劳动力成本，但北欧造成的欧元区整体盈余给汇率造成了升值压力，破坏了它们在欧元区之外的竞争力。