Eurozone Governance Quotes

Berlin has traditionally backed a rules-based eurozone in which every member state is responsible for its own finances, including bank bailouts, with political union limited to a fiscal overlord's possessing veto power over national budgets that violate the rules.

Our eurozone partners have made it clear: The choice is between staying in or getting out of the eurozone.

I am sure the euro will oblige us to introduce a new set of economic policy instruments. It is politically impossible to propose that now. But some day there will be a crisis and new instruments will be created.

Two decisions have damaged the stability both of the euro and of Europe: the premature admission of Greece to the euro area and the breach and subsequent weakening of the stability and growth pact.

Germany cannot get out of the euro. What it has to do, therefore, is make the economy more flexible - to eliminate the restrictions on prices, on wages and on employment; in short, the regulations that keep 10 percent of the German workforce unemployed.

The euro zone must strike for a better governance structure, and there is no alternative to that. Euro zone countries must either develop an exit mechanism for troubled members, or it should embrace a closer political union: an effective governance structure that is capable of enforcing rules.

Germans tend to forget now that the euro was largely a Franco-German creation. No country has benefited more from the euro than Germany, both politically and economically. Therefore what has happened as a result of the introduction of the euro is largely Germany's its responsibility.

My main argument against staying in the E.U. has been the poor economic record of the E.U. as a whole and the eurozone in particular. The performance has got worse the more the E.U. has developed joint policies and central controls.

The goal of the government is to guarantee the place of Greece in the eurozone against those who want to undermine it.

The most pressing and significant problems in the global economy are unsustainable structural issues with regard to the E.U. - fiscal deficits and the structure of the E.U. itself.

The current Eurozone is obviously dysfunctional. And serious people within Germany and elsewhere know this to be the case and know things cannot function this way forever.

You need basically some accountability rules, which means democratic checks and balances at the euro zone level, and definitely, you have to increase convergence in terms of taxes, in terms of social affairs and so on.

We need to put in place an economic system of governance for the euro-zone.

Britain is not in the single currency, and we're not going to be. But we all need the eurozone to have the right governance and structures to secure a successful currency for the long term.

It is a responsibility we perceive from the entire international community to protect the stability of the single currency as well as the European frame work.

I wanted to start by saying that the eurozone - there are two reasons they formed the European Union. One is for political peace and rationalization. And I think that's a good thing for a continent that went through hundreds of years of wars.

Interest rates do not have to be identical across the whole euro area, but it is unacceptable if major differences arise from broken capital markets or concern about a euro area break-up.

I'm not trying to be diplomatic. I'm trying to be more nuanced and realistic. I think there has to be a serious examination of the shortcomings of the Euro structure. Euro central institutions, whether it be fiscal policy, monetary policy, financial regulation, are simply not as robust as they are in a currency that has a national government behind it.

It is obvious that the monetary union among 17 very different European countries does not work. As an economist, I know that the Eurozone is not an optimum currency area, as defined in economic theory.

Indeed, the creators of the euro envisioned it as an instrument to promote political union.

As to the euro zone avant-garde, it must go towards more solidarity and integration: a common budget, a common borrowing capability, and fiscal convergence.

If European monetary policy is run according to German interests, huge structural imbalances will accumulate. The Germans will then either have to pay to correct those imbalances or agree that the euro should not be run primarily according to German interests. If they are unwilling to do either of those things, the euro can't survive.

Within our mandate, the ECB is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro. Believe me, it will be enough.

A country outside the euro zone cannot have a veto over countries in the euro zone.

One of the richest and largest markets in the world, Europe can set global standards. And if a French president is prepared to at least consider clear rules in the Eurozone, then it would be fatal if Germany were not to react.