Europe’s Debate Over Coronabonds Can Wait

Europe needs enormous public spending right now — not to deliver stimulus in the usual sense, but to meet the immediate costs of fighting Covid-19, including generous income insurance to the people whose jobs are evaporating. What Europe most certainly does not need is to get bogged down in a debate about the best long-term solutions to an urgent problem.

If the EU were a true fiscal union like the U.S., it could spend in support of its member governments, borrowing the necessary funds and servicing the resulting debt with the taxes it collects. The EU has its own currency, yet by design it remains a fiscal nonentity, with only a small budget and no tax base. Yes, Europe should change its constitution to address this state of affairs, but that would require far-reaching and time-consuming deliberations — and there’s no time for that right now.