Neither looks at all likely, but the only obstacles to the UK joining are in domestic politics, while Russia would find it very hard to obtain EU membership, on any terms, however united the country became in seeking it.
One can imagine circumstances in which the UK might need to join the single currency: a fiscal crisis where the only source of bail-out was the ECB, but the loan is offered on terms forcing the country into the euro, say. A crisis in Russia would be worse, but if its economy collapsed---still a remote chance, surely?---the path out would be through government default and dollarisation of the economy as citizens abandoned the rouble as worthless. The dollarising currency well might be the euro, but that scenario is nothing like Russia having membership of the currency.
So I would bet heavily on the UK, but I would certainly decline to put the stake into escrow until the matter is decided.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2014-12-17 11:09 am (UTC)One can imagine circumstances in which the UK might need to join the single currency: a fiscal crisis where the only source of bail-out was the ECB, but the loan is offered on terms forcing the country into the euro, say. A crisis in Russia would be worse, but if its economy collapsed---still a remote chance, surely?---the path out would be through government default and dollarisation of the economy as citizens abandoned the rouble as worthless. The dollarising currency well might be the euro, but that scenario is nothing like Russia having membership of the currency.
So I would bet heavily on the UK, but I would certainly decline to put the stake into escrow until the matter is decided.