PERSPECTIVE What Is Missing for a»Genuine« Monetary Union? Assessing the Plans for a Eurozone Roadmap MARIA JOÃO RODRIGUES June 2013 1. Why is completing the EMU necessary? The Eurozone crisis is moving to a new stage. The EMU has been equipped with new crisis management instru­ments to deal with a series of national bailouts of states and/or banks to avoid skyrocketing spreads and bank collapses and prevent the risk of default or exit, with their unforeseeable consequences. EFSF/ESM and the ECB’s non-conventional instruments are learning how to perform this job. On the preventive side, more stringent fiscal discipline has been codified in the reformed Stabil­ity and Growth Pact(»six-pack« and»two-pack«) and a new process of macroeconomic surveillance is under way. Nevertheless, the crisis is far from over and is showing the limits of this»muddling through« process. 1 This new stage of the Eurozone crisis has the following features: With financing costs still differing considerably, the Euro­zone member states have started to diverge increasingly in terms of investment rates, growth rates, job creation, unemployment and poverty rates. More recently, this cu­mulative trend has been dragging the aggregate Euro­zone and EU economy into a drawn-out recession, chronic unemployment and deeper social inequalities in and between the member states. These tensions have clear implications in the political domain, with the strength­ening of anti-European movements, weakening of pro­European political parties, spreading Euro-scepticism and a legitimacy crisis affecting democratic institutions at both European and national level. This is leading to a crisis of the European integration which is also having implica­tions for the EU international status and role. 1. For an analysis of the sustainability of the»muddling through« pro­cess, see Scenario Team Eurozone 2020(2013): Future scenarios for the Eurozone. 15 Perspectives on the Euro crisis, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Berlin, online at: http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/id/ipa/09723.pdf This Eurozone crisis appears now to be not only a se­quence of national cases of financial disturbance, but also a systemic and multidimensional crisis which can be overcome only by a more systemic and comprehensive solution aimed at addressing the major flaws and com­pleting the architecture of the EMU. 2. Long-Term Plans for the EMU It is against this background that a series of more fun­damental reform proposals have come to the fore. Four basic frameworks have been under debate to complete the EMU: the financial; the economic and social; the budgetary; and the political. The major official proposals under discussion include, notably:  the document»Towards a Genuine EMU« coordinated by President Van Rompuy involving the Presidents of the European Commission, the Eurogroup and the European Central Bank(with several versions since June 2012);  the European Parliament’s Thyssen Report(adopted in November 2012);  the European Commission’s»Blueprint for a Deep and Genuine EMU«(launched in November 2012) These documents have significant common ground but also some noticeable differences. The report of the Euro­pean Parliament went further in the economic, social and political dimension and the one from the European Com­mission went further with regard to fiscal union and the implications for Treaty changes. The European Council of December 2012 was supposed to discuss these proposals but its final conclusions reveal an important set-back in the scope of the EMU reform