Banking union with a European supervisory authority for credit institutions, a centralized rescue fund for troubled banks and a common deposit guarantee scheme; fiscal union with Eurobonds and greater powers for the European institutions in terms of national budgets; harmonization of economic and fiscal initiatives, foreign and security policy; reform of welfare programs. These would be the pillars on which the anti-crisis "general plan" currently being studied by the big four of the eurozone: the governor of the ECB Mario Draghi, the president of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy, the leader of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso and the number one of the Eurogroup Jean-Claude Juncker.
The project should be presented at the next European summit at the end of June. By the end of the year, the heads of state and government should officially approve the roadmap.
The German newspaper Welt am Sonntag was the first to break the news, quoting a high-level European official: “All over the world, in America and Asia, they ask us where you want to go – said the source -. After two years of crisis, it is time to give an answer”.
The plan could be enforced initially only to the 17 countries of the Eurozone and not to all 27 of the European Union, thus creating a definitive split after the no of Great Britain and the Czech Republic to the fiscal compact.
However, the denial came from Brussels: "There are no secret plans for a restructuring or a rescue of the European Union," said the spokeswoman for the European Commission, Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen. At the informal summit of European leaders held on May 23, however, the need to deepen the work was "agreed", recalled the spokesperson, on the measures to be taken in the EU to counter the market crisis and relaunch economic growth.
Meanwhile this morning the Wall Street Journal spoke of a possible change of course by Germany, which so far has returned almost every reform proposal at European level to the sender. In particular, according to the American newspaper, Berlin would stand softening the line on Eurobonds. An opening could also come on the front of the joint support to banks, but only in exchange for further transfers of sovereignty from nation states to the EU.
"The more the other member states are involved in these developments and are prepared to cede their sovereignty to have the EU institutions more involved - says a government source quoted by the newspaper -, the more we too will be prepared to take an active role in issues such as the banking union: you can't have one without the other”. In any case, “there will be no big bang at the June summit, but it would be a big step forward if we could create a structure for discussion, establishing a working method, asking the right questions and setting a timetable that would be meaningful for Europe".
