Both the policy and institutional options taken by core and peripheral European countries do not appear as the result of too haste political decisions or ill institutional design, but as deliberate choices, method in the madness. A better designed Europe could, of course, be possible with fiscal and monetary coordination, and internationally planned national wage and fiscal policies aimed to correct the infra-European imbalances. The only problem is that this is unlikely to be accepted by Germany.

January 28, 2011.