Commission on Accountability

An Open Letter from Concerned Europeans to Eurozone Leaders

The euro crisis needs a solution, now. The current measures are too little and too late and are precipitating global financial turmoil. The euro is far from perfect, as this crisis has revealed. But the answer is to fix its faults rather than allowing it to undermine and perhaps destroy the global financial system.

We, concerned Europeans, call upon the governments of the Eurozone to agree in principle on the need for a legally binding agreement to: 1) establish a common treasury that can raise funds for the Eurozone as a whole and ensure that member-states adhere to fiscal discipline; 2) reinforce common supervision, regulation and deposit insurance within the Eurozone; and 3) develop a strategy that will produce both economic convergence and growth because the debt problem cannot be solved without growth.

While a legally binding agreement is being negotiated and ratified, the governments of the Eurozone must in the interim empower the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) and the European Central Bank (ECB) to cooperate in bringing the crisis under control. These institutions could then guarantee and eventually recapitalize the banking system and enable countries in need to refinance their debt, within agreed limits, at practically no cost by issuing treasury bills that can be rediscounted at the ECB.

We call upon the legislatures of the Eurozone countries to recognize that the euro needs a European solution. The pursuit of national solutions can only lead to dissolution.