European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker at a summit of the 27 EU leaders in Brussels, Belgium, on Feb. 23, 2018. Ye Pingfan/Press Association. All rights reserved.The Eurozone is recovering from a long crisis; growth rates are turning positive across the Eurozone after a decade, business confidence is rising. Current accounts are balanced after the brutal adjustment in the periphery. The overall unemployment in the Euro area reached its pre-crisis level in 2017. This has been seen as a triumph.
This current euphoria emerges paradoxically from the dust and rubble of the broken social and political contract within and between countries across the Eurozone. The break-up of the convergence illusion in the periphery and the backlash against the bailouts in the North raised diverse voices against the Euro project in the aftermath of the financial crisis.
But the European Commission has recently set up a ‘grand reform’ agenda for a European Minister of Finance, a European Monetary Fund, and new Budgetary Instruments to win the hearts and minds of EU citizens for ‘a more integrated and performing Euro area to bring further stability and prosperity to all in the EU’.
