So far, Europe’s leaders have had little appetite for such a discussion. In June 2015, they only paid lip service to a report on the euro’s future by the presidents of the various European institutions. A few weeks later, the issue briefly returned to the agenda when eurozone leaders spent a long late-July night arguing about whether to kick out Greece; but their stated intention to follow up and address underlying problems was short-lived. Finally, plans to respond to the Brexit shock by strengthening the eurozone were quickly ditched, owing to fear that reform would prove too divisive.
The issue, however, has not gone away. Although the monetary anesthetics administered by the ECB have reduced market tensions, nervousness has reemerged in the run-up to the Italian constitutional referendum on December 4. By end-November spreads between Italian and German ten-year bunds reached 200 basis points, a level not seen since 2014.
The worrying state of several Italian banks is one reason for the mounting concern. Brexit, and the election of a US president who advocates Americanism instead of globalism and dismisses the EU, adds the risk that voters, rather than markets, will call into question European monetary integration. Anti-euro political parties are on the rise in all major eurozone countries except Spain. In Italy, they may well command a majority.
On the economic front, the eurozone has much unfinished business. The banking union, launched in June 2012 to sever the interdependence of banks and states, has made good progress but is not yet complete. Competitiveness gaps between eurozone members have diminished, and external imbalances within it have abated, but largely thanks to the compression of domestic demand in Southern Europe; saving flows from North to South have not resumed. Unemployment gaps remain wide.
The eurozone still lacks a common fiscal mechanism as well, and Germany has flatly rejected the European Commission’s recent attempt to promote a “positive stance” in countries with room to boost spending. Of course, when the next recession hits, fiscal stability is likely to be in dangerously short supply.
Finally, the governance of the eurozone remains excessively cumbersome and technocratic. Most ministers, not to mention legislators, appear to have become lost in a procedural morass.
This unsatisfactory equilibrium may or may not last, depending on political or financial risks – or, most likely, the interaction between them. So the question now is how to hold a fruitful discussion to map out possible responses. The obstacles are twofold: First, there is no longer any momentum toward “more Europe”; on the contrary, a combination of skepticism about Europe and reluctance concerning potential transfers constitutes a major stumbling block. And, second, views about the nature and root causes of the euro crisis differ across countries. Given the dearth of political capital to spend on European responses, and disagreement on what the problem is and how to solve it, governments’ excess of caution is hardly surprising.
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