Truth is that these counties should never have been asked to join the Euro in the first place and this problem will never be fixed while they remain. However it's the big cosy idea that counts in the minds of the Eurocrats, never mind the human cost.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_prit...
You can picture it as going through therapy or adolescence. And boy what a drama that is...
In the noughties that meant having cheap money because Germany was in the doldrums. Of course fiscal policies could have been used to dampen down demand in the overheated peripheral economies at that time. And to a certain extent there were. In Ireland, in about 2002, there was a very generous tax-free savings scheme if people to put away money for 5 years. Practically everyone who had the money bought into it to the maximum limit allowed. It was completely inadequate though and a lot more should have been done.
However the trend in Europe is also to harmonise fiscal policy. So to me it looks like, if we know what's good for us, we will all have to get into line with the German economy. In the future we will be paying ever closer attention to internal German politics and economic affairs. Maybe that's a good thing, the Germans do seem to know how to run an economy but I don't think 'growing up' is a metaphor I'd use for it.
Euro interest rates have always set to suit Germany and thus been too low for many of the other Euro countries - cheap money is one of the factor behind the crisis across the Euro