After significant progress as an immediate result of the euro crisis, the drive to complete Europe’s Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) has decelerated. While there is a broad consensus in Europe that EMU needs further development, the exact nature and timing of the reform agenda remains controversial. This paper makes an analytical contribution to the ongoing discussion about the euro area’s institutional setup. An in-depth look at the remaining gaps in the euro’s architecture, and the trade-offs that repairing them would present, suggests the need for long-run progress along three mutually supportive tracks. The first is more fiscal risk sharing, which will help enhance the credibility of the sovereign “no-bailout” rule. The second is complementary financial sector reforms to delink sovereigns and banks. And the third is more effective rules to discourage moral hazard. Helpfully, this evolution would ensure that financial markets provide more incentives for fiscal discipline than they do now. Introducing more fiscal union comes with myriad legal, technical, operational, and political problems, however, raising questions well beyond the domain of economics. These difficulties notwithstanding, without decisive progress to foster fiscal risk sharing, EMU will continue to face existential risks.

中文翻译：

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重新审视欧元区财政联盟的经济案例

在欧元危机直接导致重大进展之后，完成欧洲经济与货币联盟（EMU）的动力减慢了。尽管欧洲已达成广泛共识，认为欧洲货币联盟需要进一步发展，但改革议程的确切性质和时机仍存在争议。本文对正在进行的有关欧元区体制设置的讨论做出了分析性贡献。深入研究欧元体系中尚存的差距，以及在弥补这些差距时所要进行的取舍，表明有必要在三个相互支持的轨道上取得长期进展。首先是更多的财政风险分担，这将有助于增强主权“无救助”规则的信誉。第二个是补充性的金融部门改革，以使主权国家与银行脱钩。第三是更有效的规则，以防止道德风险。有益的是，这种演变将确保金融市场提供比现在更多的财政纪律激励措施。引入更多的财政联盟伴随着无数的法律，技术，运营和政治问题，但是，提出的问题远远超出了经济学领域。尽管存在这些困难，但在促进财政风险分担方面没有决定性进展的情况下，动车组将继续面临存在的风险。