Seizing the Moment for Euro Area Reform

The election of Emmanuel Macron as French President gave renewed hope to proponents of the European integration project after the blow of Brexit. There is now a momentum that euro area member states could agree on the view that the euro is incomplete and cannot last without major reforms.

In this Policy Paper, our president Enrico Letta, Henrik Enderlein, Director of our office in Germany, the Jacques Delors Institut – Berlin and Aart De Geus, President and CEO of the Bertelsmann Stiftung) set out their proposals for a staged but lasting and workable reform at the moment when the Commission publishes its reflexion paper on the deepening on the Economic and Monetary Union. They propose a comprehensive reform strategy based on three building blocks:

• a first aid kit consisting of a reinforced European Stability Mechanism (ESM+), an enhanced Banking Union and better economic policy coordination under improved democratic control
• a more targeted structural reform agenda combined with a comprehensive investment initiative
• a major reform of EMU for the long term, involving significant risk- and sovereignty-sharing within a coherent and legitimate framework of supranational economic governance