(05 June 2017) – The election of Emmanuel Macron as French President gave renewed hope to proponents of the European integration project after the blow of Brexit. There is now a momentum that euro area member states could agree on the view that the euro is incomplete and cannot last without major reforms.
In a policy paper published by the Jacques Delors Institute, Enrico Letta, Henrik Enderlein, and Aart De Geus set out their proposals for a staged but lasting and workable reform at the moment when the Commission publishes its reflexion paper on the deepening on the Economic and Monetary Union. They propose a comprehensive reform strategy based on three building blocks:
– a first aid kit consisting of a reinforced European Stability Mechanism (ESM+), an enhanced Banking Union and better economic policy coordination under improved democratic control;
– a more targeted structural reform agenda combined with a comprehensive investment initiative;
– a major reform of EMU for the long term, involving significant risk- and sovereignty-sharing within a coherent and legitimate framework of supranational economic governance.