Europe needs to accelerate on its way to economic and institutional convergence.
Due to falling oil prices, accommodative monetary policy and successful structural reforms, we can be optimistic about the economic outlook. The nascent recovery should be used as a window of opportunity to go ahead with reforms that make the euro area less fragile and vulnerable to shocks. Economic convergence should be reached through structural reforms that lead to an alignment of productivity levels. On the institutional side, we need to move from a system of rules and guidelines for national economic policy making to a system of further sovereignty sharing within common institutions. As part of this process, we need to strengthen the democratic accountability of Europe towards its citizens.
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The euro area has advanced a long way as a monetary union. We began with a single market, a single currency and a single monetary policy. We now have a single supervisor and resolution authority. And soon we will have a single capital market.
But we have not yet advanced far enough to put all questions about our future to bed. We need to remove those lingering doubts that resurface whenever a shock hits. And to do so we have to accelerate both our economic and institutional convergence.
Our monetary policy is helping to make this possible by creating an improving cyclical environment. But it is now up to governments to seize on this opportunity and make those improvements permanent.
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