Quote from C6H12O6:
None in his right mind.
Seriously, it depends who you ask to. Some old people or simple people with no specific economic knowledge will tell that they want the old Lira, beacause they are pissed off from the speculations during the changeover period, by those economic operators with pricing power. Prices, especially in restaurants and pizzerias, nearly doubled in a two years. Other food prices in supermarkets actually didn't go up that much, they went up in line with official inflation, but people are pissed off and complain anyway, because they like to complain
Some clever politicians, a few years ago, used to exploit that feeling about the lira, that's the reason you can now read that old statements.
Now it's completely different.
If you ask some more educated people, they will tell you "NEVER ! thank god we have the euro", because with the old Lira, in the current financial difficulties, with soaring prices of oil and commodities, it would have been a catastrophe.
We already had the '70, with raising oil prices, and salaries linked to inflation, and a resulting even higher inflation. it was really really really bad.
Political and monetary power are in different hands. Central banks are privately controlled. Political power changes every 4 or 5 years with the elections, monetary power doesn't.
I think that the international bankers that invented the euro will keep the system going, forcing reforms whereas necessary. In Italy the next move will be a big pension reform to cut public debt.
With regards to your other question, the euro at multi year high against other currencies, actually I'm looking right now at a 5 year chart of EUR/CAD, EUR/JPY, EUR/CHF, EUR/AUD, but they are not. Euro is high only against US dollar and UK pound.
Even EUR/CAD is at 1.5884, like in the period 2002-2005.
C6H12O6 (Mr. 'Hexose') The Euro will likely replace the dollar at some point in the not distant future as the preferred currency of international commerce. Probably the only thing preventing that so far is the U.S.'s veiled threat to drop its commitment to military protection of the Saudi's and other Arab oil producers if they allow OPEC to drop the dollar.
Once the Euro replaces the dollar as the favored currency of international trade there will be tremendous benefits accruing to the EU.
The same benefits that US has enjoyed all these years. Trade in dollars resulted in huge amounts of dollar denominated assets accumulating in central banks around the world. This resulted in the US being free to inflate it's fiat currency, thus cheating all the nations it has borrowed from at fixed interest rates. And the US has little to fear from central banks dumping dollars, knowing that they all stand to suffer tremendous losses if they don't support the dollar. (Of course there is a limit to how far the U.S. can go down this road, and they may already be pushing their luck.) At the moment, sovereign funds are being used in ever increasing amounts to buy U.S. hard assets as this is one of the very few ways that other nations can hedge against further dollar weakness. But in the meantime Henry Paulson smiles every time he writes a check for interest on borrowed money.
If the EU should ever go back to national currencies, any hope of the Euro becoming the standard international trade currency goes down the drain! I just don't see that happening. Most likely a compromise will be reached in the EU and short term interest rates in the EU will ease some, the Euro will weaken slightly, and the dollar will strengthen slightly vs. the Euro, but a truly strong dollar is not on the horizon. Too much US debt that must be inflated away!
One thing it would seem we are virtually certain to see is a reluctance among central banks to take on still more dollar denominated paper. This has the potential to become a serious problem for the US. Interest rates in the US will have to go up. But when?