Barry Eichengreen v komentarju v švicarskem Finanz und Wirtschaft trdi, da je v nemškem interesu, da popravi institucionalno ureditev evro območja v smeri bančne in transferne unije, kajti v nasprotnem primeru ji bo bodisi razpadlo evro območje bodisi bo sama potrebovala takšno transferno unijo. Kajti dokaj hitro lahko tudi sama postane novi bolnik Evrope.

In terms of the euro, this means that there will be no post-election «surprise» of the sort predicted by some champions of the single currency.  2013 has not exactly been a year of great progress in resolving the euro crisis, to put an understated gloss on the point.  The return to growth in Southern Europe has been halting.  Progress toward banking union has been hesitant. …

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Mrs. Merkel and other German leaders could in principle take steps to shatter the prevailing sense of complacency.  They could drive home that the risks are very real.  They could emphasize that just because the euro has survived a difficult five years is no guarantee that it will survive five more, absent fundamental policy reforms.

Specifically, they could argue that the risks can be adequately addressed only by creating an full-fledged banking union – not just a single supervisor empowered to require European banks to raise adequate capital, but also a common deposit insurance scheme and a jointly-funded resolution mechanism – along with a jointly-funded pan-European unemployment insurance fund.  The banking union would break the «diabolic loop» between banking problems and sovereign debt problems.  The jointly-funded unemployment insurance fund would provide for limited transfers from low to high unemployment regions, like those which operate in the United States.

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Germany’s demographic decline, in other words, is baked in.  So too, therefore, is the decline of its economy.  Together, these factors imply that the possibility that Germany will eventually number among Europe’s sick economies cannot be dismissed.  Policies that transfer resources from booming to depressed regions might, in fact, benefit Germany.  The country’s leaders need to make the case.

Vir: Barry Eichengreen, Finanz und Wirtschaft