Even after fears of a Greek exit from the euro were eased by the outcome of the country's June 17 elections, Europe remains in crisis as concern lingers that Spain's banks are a potentially bigger risk. Ending the crisis will require European leaders to come up with a longer-term vision for deeper economic integration, experts concurred at a recent symposium in Tokyo.
The issue of forming a eurozone banking union, for example, will inevitably revive some of the fundamental questions left unanswered since the currency union formed, said Hans Dietmar Schweisgut, the European Union's ambassador to Japan, at a June 6 symposium organized by the Keizai Koho Center.
Over the past two years since the onset of the sovereign debt crisis, Europe has adopted "an impressive new framework for dealing with the crisis and economic governance" of the eurozone states, including firewalls to protect members exposed to market pressures and budget monitoring to promote fiscal discipline, the envoy said. But the "very strong consensus" in Europe today is that "we are now at a phase where we have to take steps beyond strengthening of the firewalls and the governance system to a new system of the eurozone which will be more coherent and integrated," he said.