Market Meltdown, Dow crashing!

[UncleScrooge]

To be honest this was somewhat bound to happen considering we've been unable to cooperate financially so far. You can't have a common currency without common financial politics. What we need is a finance minister on a European or at least a Euro-Zone level who is elected by the european parliament.

So far countries could use the euro to give themselves competitive advantages in certain areas. The european / eurozone economy is acting as one single market but the governments aren't willing to give up a bit of their power. That breaks an otherwise working mechanism. What we truly need is common taxes on a euro-zone level. These taxes could later be allocated back to the countries. And damn yes, the western european countries will have to pay a bit more in absolute numbers to support the rise of eastern Europe but longterm this is going to help the whole Union.

Some people still claim the Euro or the common market makes us weaker but this is not true. It is pretty much shown in every poll that those who claim the Euro / common market weakens us are often the ones who know the least about how the EU works. Further integration would help nations like France and Greece to profit from the huge exports of Germany and help export-oriented nations to increase their european "exports" even more.

I know everyone takes peace for granted these days in Europe but I'm really worried about a rise of eurosceptism in a lot of European countries (including the german chancellor who is acting like she was in a position to tell the greeks what to do... luckily the government is polling extremely low right now so she might wake up at some point).

Statistics (often wrong statistics) aren't enough to explain why European integration is so beneficial to everyone. With issues like global warming, terrorism, nuclear weapons and an ever-increasing rise of globalization there is no way we can solve future problems on a national level. And there is no reason Europeans should be scared of each other when it comes to politics.

But hey, it's not like politicians were willing to give up their power...