President Barroso’s State of the Union Address and the working document published by President Van Rompuy sketch out the broad outlines of the institutional architecture of the euro area that requires adjustment because of the crisis and needs to be further improved by combining effectiveness and legitimacy. António Vitorino suggests several complementary proposals in that way, in a Notre Europe’s viewpoint based on four main statements:

António Vitorino notes that many of the institutional adjustments needed by the euro area have already been implemented in a flexible manner, but others required or will require a revision of the European Treaties. He underlines that all imply political and democratic legitimisation that is equal to the challenges facing the ‘European Federation of Nation States’ theorised by Jacques Delors, in which the role of national institutions and their leaders is also a major one.