Coronabonds Could Save Europe, or Sink It
It’s too bad the European Union is talking about “euro bonds 2.0” again, when it should be talking about “Hamilton bonds.”
Founding father. Of Europe?
Photographer: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group Editorial via Getty Images
“As I see it, Europe is at an Alexander Hamilton moment, but there’s no Alexander Hamilton in sight.” That witticism came from Paul Volcker, a former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, when he was visiting the European Union in 2012, in the throes of the euro crisis. Volcker, who died in 2019, nailed it — and for the EU in 2020 just as in 2012.
Volcker was referring to a controversy about “euro bonds,” as they were called then, which has now resurfaced under the label (what else?) “coronabonds.” The circumstances are different — a sovereign debt crisis then, a pandemic now — but the idea is the same.