The troubled euro has always been a bad idea because a single currency just doesn't make sense for too many European Union countries, says leading economist Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland.

"Europe had a perfectly sound economic community before the Euro," Morici said Tuesday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.

"The Euro is a symbol more than a useful tool and they need to get away from symbols and get back into doing what they need to do. And that is to continue to reform and strengthen their economies. A currency doesn't do that for them."

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Morici's remarks came as a heavily-indebted Greece teeters on the brink of default which could spell its expulsion from the EU and badly damage the euro currency.

"It's unprecedented for a major industrialized country, which Greece is, believe it or not. If you look at Greece before the financial crisis, very high income level, very competitive shipping in the petroleum sectors, tourism business, not a lot, but a small country. Now defaulting," he said.

"Why? It got in over its head, it borrowed too much money because it was in the Euro zone. Now [German Chancellor] Angela Merkel is saying, if it fails, the Euro will fail.

"The Euro's going to fail not because of Greece … The Euro doesn't make sense for Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Ireland, and others. It's just that Greece is the first domino to fall."

Morici added that Greece is likely to eventually return to financial health if it exits the euro.

"If they do pull out of the Euro and they go on the drachma … my feeling is that the economy will work itself through it, the Greeks will go through some bad days, but eventually they'll emerge stronger," he said.

"If they go along with more austerity, let's think of what that means. For the last five years, they've had austerity and their economy shrunk by 25 percent. Is there any reason to believe that more of this is going to do them any good?"

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