Europe’s Fiscal Union

choi

Heinrich Winkler, The Fall of the Berlin Wall to a US of Europe. Financial Times, Dec 7, 2011 (op-ed).

(a) Excerpt in the window of print: A federalist Poland would be the ideal mediator between a closer monetary union and the Europe Union

(b) Quote:

When Berlin Wall fell, "prospect of a reunified Germany filled many neighbours, including France, with concern. President Francçis Mitterrand saw one way to prevent Germany hegemony over Europe: the D-Mark, that hallmark of German strength, had to be absorbed into a single European currency. * * * Currency union has been the ambition of many a postwar west European politician, including Helmut Kohl, who wanted monetary union, but with political integration. In the spring of 1990 he gave in ot Mr Mitterrand, to prevent tainting German unification with Franco-German discord and agreed to a separation of the issues [monetary or political union]. The result was the 1993 Maastricht treaty. Monetary union became a reality, but not fiscal union which was at the heart of Germany's vision for political union. * * * When Joschka Fischer, then Germany's foreign minister, spoke in May 2000 in favour of a European Federation with a government responsible to the European parliament, he met antagonism not just in London but in Paris."

(c) My comment:
(i) The article explains how Euro was created,  at least according to the author who is a history professor of Germany. The author concludes it is now the time moving European Union toward fiscal, even political, union--hence in the title and the last paragraph: "United States of Europe."

I deems the article interesting, but I do not know about you. So you decide whether to read it based on the introudction in this posting. Fiscal union might be possible, in my view, but not political union.

(A) Francçis Mitterrand (1916-1996; French president 1981-1995)
(B) Helmut Kohl (1930- ; German Chancellor 1982-1998)

(ii) Poland is not in the Eurozone.
(iii) The article says, "Nowadays, the idea of a federation is back on the agenda, but not because of governments but through circumstances driving Europe that way--'la force des choses' as Charles deGaulle would have said."

"par la force des choses : of necessity, inevitably"
Merriam-Webster's French-English Dictionary. Merriam-Webster, Inc, 2000 at page 155.
http://books.google.com/books?id ... e&q&f=false

French to English:
(A) par  by
(B) choses (both singular and plural due to ending with "s")  thing or things