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It's not irrelevant, Ross, not in todays financial reality. Importing minerals, including oil, means money leaving the national economy on a daily basis.
As for government debt, assuming you mean sovereign debt, the eurozone countries cannot simply print their own money.
Printing of the euro is strictly regulated by a central euro-authority. I think the central bank in Frankfurt is responsible for it.
Countries like Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal used to be able to print more money, when they each had their own currency.
The euro, when introduced, was based on the performance of the German economy, and most eurozone countries cannot keep up with the strict rules, which is why Germany, and France, are paying many of their own euros to keep afloat the budgets of other eurozone countries.