High levels of sovereign debt have become a hotly-debated issue in the Eurozone. This does not just affect the individual member states: The European debt crisis has shown that difficulties in one euro-area country can spread to the entire currency union.
This briefing, written by Jörg Haas, affiliate research fellow at the Jacques Delors Institut – Berlin, outlines different strategies for reducing sovereign debt. In particular, it looks at whether a stronger role for the EU could help to reduce debt – or whether this should be left to the member states. 

In the publication series “Europa briefing”, the Bertelsmann Stiftung and the Jacques Delors Institut – Berlin cover key topics of European politics and present possible scenarios: What is the problem? What might happen next? And what can politics do now? You will find all the publications from the joint project here: www.strengthentheeuro.eu