A quote from Patience Wheatcroft in The Times, 27 January 2006

Only Spain and Ireland have really gained from the euro. The Netherlands, like big brother Germany, has suffered from one size having to fit all. […] Unlike Germany, the Netherlands has also kept its finances in order, only to suffer from a lack of discipline elsewhere. […] For [former EU Commissioner Frits] Bolkestein, however, it is the big tax-funded pensions in Italy that could destroy the euro in ten years’ time. [...] In its own and others’ interests, Italy should be forced out. But political considerations will probably keep it in, keep the euro staggering on and and continue to attract new members from the East. The Dutch may have to leave if they want to be free, to sink the doomed experiment and to grow faster.