Making the Euro Area Fit for the Future

The crisis in the European currency area is not over yet. Although the situation in the financial markets is currently relatively calm, the economic crisis appears to be bottoming out in most countries. Nevertheless, fundamental design flaws in the Monetary Union continue to exist. If these are not fully addressed, it will only be a matter of time before a new crisis hits, and a partial or complete breakup of the monetary union cannot be ruled out. The economic consequences would be devastating, not least for Germany. To ensure the continued existence of the European Monetary Union, fundamental reform is required in three problem areas: the financial markets, public finances, and the real economy. In order to give the monetary union a stable foundation, all problem areas must be tackled equally; otherwise, due to interactions between these fields, success in one area might be wiped out by a flare-up of the crisis elsewhere. The present DIW Wochenbericht outlines the elements of such a strategy for the institutional restructuring of the Monetary Union. It is therefore the prelude to a series whose subsequent parts are concerned with the role of the ECB as the lender of last resort, with the banking union and bank regulation, community bonds, a European investment agenda, with migration within the EU, a European unemployment insurance, options for fiscal devaluation, and the mechanisms for sovereign bankruptcies.