Merkel can achieve fiscal union in Europe

Commentary feature. Europe is the solution, not the problem, write Niall Ferguson and Pierpaolo Barbieri. The writers are Laurence A. Tisch professor of history and an Ernest May fellow at Harvard University.

They write 'Europe’s monetary union is neither the joint checking account of a dysfunctional family nor a latter-day gold standard. It was always meant to be a staging post on the road to a federal Europe. Today the biggest threat to its survival is no longer the economic consequences of austerity; it is the political consequences, in the form of populist, anti-European, usually xenophobic fringe parties. Almost everywhere but Germany, such parties are gaining support'.

Germany can lead the way forward. 'More than most, Germans are invested in the European ideal. It has given their country a route back not just to prosperity but also to political respectability, to successful reunification, and now to a dominant economic position. Small wonder no credible German politicians are against 'more Europe'.'

See a counter perspective in ESO: Background information: Eurozone voters query closer integration (via the related url hyperlink)

ESO: Background information: Eurozone voters query closer integration http://www.europeansources.info/record/eurozone-voters-query-closer-integration/

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