Der Spiegel ^ | 06/11/2012 | Konstantin von Hammerstein, Christoph Pauly and Christoph Schult
Because they have been unable to find agreement, European leaders have asked top Eurocrats—European Commission President José Manuel Barroso, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, Eurogroup head Jean-Claude Juncker and European Central Bank head Mario Draghi—to come up with a plan. They hope to share some initial proposals at the European summit scheduled for the end of this month. A concrete plan is to be ready by autumn. …
The four are intent on making the currency union irreversible, and deepening it to become a political union. A completely different Europe would emerge from such a process.
The plan envisions nation states giving up significant elements of their sovereignty to European institutions. It would mean that the European Parliament would have to fight for relevancy with a new body that would be granted important oversight functions. The result would be a two-speed Europe, the core of which would be represented by the currency union.
At the heart of the deliberations is the creation of a real fiscal union, which would prohibit member states from taking on new debt on their own. Governments would only have complete control of funds that are covered by tax revenues.
Those needing more money than they generate themselves would have to register their needs with the euro group, made up of eurozone finance ministers. They would then analyze the financial needs and the amount of funding requested from the different countries before deciding which were justified and which were not. Euro bonds would then be issued to finance the debt.
The group of finance ministers would be led by a full-time chair—and not, as is presently the case, by one of the finance ministers. The chair would ultimately become a kind of European finance minister. …
(Excerpt) Read more at spiegel.de ...
