In his comment (When Europe starts to melt at the edges, Financial Times 26-1-09), Gideon Rachman informs his readers that “even pro-European think-tanks, such as the Centre for European Reform (CER) are speculating that Europe’s single currency, which currently includes 16 EU countries, could break up under the strain”.

And indeed in the CER’s essay on “The Euro at Ten: Is Its Future Secure?” (January 2009), edited by Simon Tilford, one can read that: a) “accelerated political integration within the eurozone and a move to some form of fiscal federalism – is the least likely”; b) “a bail-out of the affected member-states … is unlikely”; c) “the most likely outcome is that the hardest-hit countries will be forced into wrenching fiscal adjustment and that Germany and others with large external surpluses will take modest steps to rebalance their economies”.

Well, all that means that there are no European political chances or that the European institutions are of no importance to deal with the economic crisis.
This CER’s essay has revisited the arguments made in another report entitled, ‘Will the eurozone crack?’ (2006). Unfortunately it ignores that the framework for saving the European currency and economy remains that of the relaunch of the project to build a European federal State among some EU member States.

That is, this report seems to ignore that the Dollar -  and the US economy -  or the Renmimbi – and the Chinese economy -  live and exert their power in the institutional framework of concrete and effective States.

What we Europeans need to understand the federation is profitable, even necessary for us? New great war? Heavy economic crisis?

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Je prendrais avec des pincettes tout rapport, essai ou étude du CER. C'est effectivement un think-tank pro-européen, mais un think-tank européen avec une culture très britannique, qui considère que "les fédéralistes sont des ennemis de l'Europe" (Why Europe will run the twenty-first century, Mark Leonard). Qu'ils voient comme un péril une avancée de l'Europe vers un modèle plus fédéral n'est pas très surprenant.