Quote Originally Posted by Surferbeetle View Post
The European Union (EU) is the beating macroeconomic heart of European Command (EUCOM)

(...)

The European Union is not a fiscal union and it is an incomplete economic (common market and customs union) and monetary union; this distinction is at the center of its current macroeconomic troubles.
a) EU is not a part of EUCOM. EUCOM is merely concerned with an area in which the EU member states are.


b) I disagree on the fiscal policy thing.
Italy has the exact same macroeconomic problems between its north and its south as the Euro currency region has between its member states. Legal harmonisation and unification do not change the actual economic properties.

There are theories of optimal currency area, and one of them postulates that you need a high input factor mobility (capital, labour) inside a currency area in order to get a self-balancing effect.
An increase in Greek emigration hints that there is some labour mobility, but the past decade shows that it wasn't sufficient.
Furthermore, there is some theoretical work missing (or unknown to me) to reflect the fact that regions have fixed costs (pensions, government upkeep) and just draining them of input factors is an imperfect substitute for transfers in the case of imbalances.

There are proponents of further EU integration who continually sow the idea that problems are founded in imperfect integration into the world, but that are mere talking points. The actual macroeconomic analysis looks at different variables and finds different key problems.

(...)27 different financial ministries(...)
Actually, more. Some EU members have a federalist structure. Germany has 17 financial ministries alone.

Although comprised of 27 members, only 17 (the Eurozone) have ostensibly met the economic and monetary union requirements of the 1992 Maastricht Treaty. In return for the ability to participate in the world’s second largest reserve currency (...)
I disagree. At most 15 met the requirements. Greece lied its way into the club (and even after admitting it, continued to lie in the following years!) and Portugal was admitted despite failing to meet the requirements. It was deemed small enough to not hurt the other members significantly.

In order to achieve a fiscal union, member states will have to cede a greater portion of national control over fiscal policy to the EU.
The German federal constitutional court has pretty much written in stone by now that further integration would violate the constitution and be repealed by this court's rulings. There is not going to be a major step towards EU fiscal integration without replacing the German constitution.
Afaik amending or changing it won't suffice, for the articles in question are among the 20 first, definite ones that cannot be changed in their meaning.