Revista de blogues (3/1/2011)

• «Some readers have chimed in that the euro is essentially a political rather than economic project. Well, it’s both; that has been the European strategy ever since the Schuman declaration. The point is to deliver a series of economic integration plans that do double duty: they’re economically productive, but they also create “de facto solidarity”, moving Europe closer to political union.
  
  (...)
  But: the strategy depends on each move toward economic integration being both a political symbol and a good economic idea. That was clearly true of coal and steel, the common market, the eurosausage, and so on. It is, however, by no means clear that the euro passes that test. Europe’s limited labor mobility (although there’s more than there used to be) and, crucially, lack of fiscal integration makes a common currency a dubious proposition at best.
  And that’s a problem for the broader European project. You build solidarity with economic measures that work, not with measures that don’t. I don’t believe that a euro crackup would bring us back to the days of the Siegfried Line; but it would put a damper on those feelings of solidarity that are supposed to take the continent, step by step, toward true federation.
  If I were a European leader, I’d be very, very worried about this — and willing to take some serious risks, like the creation of E-bonds, in an attempt to turn this thing around.» (Paul Krugman)