Editorial Board
Europe’s Still Not Ready to Shore Up the Monetary Union
Planned reforms are a start, but they won’t be much help in a crisis.
Not ready for the next recession.
Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg
Not long ago, EU leaders were talking about a grand bargain to reform their currency union. It isn’t happening. Europe’s finance ministers have just approved a package of reforms to strengthen the monetary union. Their plan falls far short of what’s needed.
The new proposals aren’t worthless — any steps to better equip the euro zone to deal with the next financial crisis are welcome. But they conspicuously fail to address the system’s most important weaknesses: deposit insurance and fiscal policy.