The good news is that the indications of a recovery have been reinforced, even if prudently.
Within this context, questions of economic governance have become vital, especially in the eurozone.
We need effective governance mechanisms to promote and enhance the emerging conditions of recovery.
Those introduced these past years to buttress the eurozone need simplification and democratic accountability.
Beyond that, some argue that further structural deepening is needed to compensate in part for deficiencies in the eurozone’s design.
Now, they claim, is the right time to carry out these partial changes.
However, the fundamental problem facing the eurozone, beyond economic stagnation, is the growing economic divergences between regions and national economies.
Parts of the eurozone system are benefitting from an internal undervaluation. It allows them to maximize sales of their output within the zone. They thereby achieve better scale economies for their output which helps them penetrate better non eurozone markets.
Meanwhile, other parts of the euro system are internally overvalued, which makes them uncompetitive both within and outside the eurozone. To correct this, they can only carry out a painful internal devaluation, creating huge social problems without guaranteeing success.
This huge imbalance in the eurozone’s economic system needs to be addressed before governance issues can be tackled effectively.
Partial deepening of the eurozone’s governance structures on the basis of the existing economic imbalance risks only to increase the economic divergences.

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