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This is an excellent article by Jean Pisani-Ferry and well worth a read. Check it out!

“Federalism or Bust for Europe?” by Jean Pisani-Ferry | Project Syndicate.

The author, Jean Pisani-Ferry,  is Director of Bruegel, the Brussels-based economic-policy think tank, and Professor of Economics at Université Paris-Dauphine. He was an adviser to the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs, and was Director of CEPII, France’s leading international economics research institute. He has also served as Senior Economic Adviser to the French finance minister, Executive President of the French prime minister’s Council of Economic Analysis, and Senior Adviser to the director of the French Treasury.

Jean Pisani-Ferry challenges:

The big question to which nobody has a clear answer is whether Europe is in the process of inventing a model of its own, or has only taken a detour from the inevitable choice between disaggregation and convergence on the standard federal template. One solution could be to provide national representatives a venue to convene for European-wide debates. Another would be to transfer the insurance role to a federal institution accountable to the European parliament.

Personally, I look at the Euro crisis as huge Action Research project, with an iterative approach to analysis and intervention, often stimulated by the markets and the credit rating agencies. I do not see a simple choice between  disaggregation and convergence. I expect Europe to invent i’s own model of federalsm.

What do you think?