The Euro is a strange creation. It is a currency that is common to various European countries, but while it has a European Central Bank to provide liquidity and policy, it has no treasury. There is also a flaw in the sense that when the 2008 crash hit Europe, individual states had to rescue banking systems independently.

Analysts now argue that the Eurozone should have a treasury that can tax citizens. This, they argue, should not be done on a regular basis, but in times of crisis. Individual member states, and citizens themselves, are not likely to be happy about this situation. Why would they be? Let us take Malta as an example. Our banks kept their noses clean and problems such as struggling factories were swiftly identified by the government and tackled very quickly. These interventions, by and large, yielded positive results. So it begs the question... why on earth should a country such as Malta, have to contribute to a treasury which would see its coffers drained quicker than you can say PIGS if a crisis similar to what we are witnessing now were to re-emerge? Ah... but the Europhiles will tell us that Europe is a club and that if we want to forge ahead with monetary union, then we would have to have political union as well.

Now, here we see where the problems arise... how could Europe use this argument of mutual solidarity when Malta has been crying out for help to deal with the immigration problem?

No... it does not quite work like that. But also, we cannot allow Greece to flounder. The Greeks are forging ahead with their austerity plan to slash the budget deficit by four percentage points this year. However, they are claiming that this will be next to impossible to do without the capacity to borrow money at interest rates afforded to non-crisis countries. The markets were not impressed with Greece’s plans to curtail its ballooning 12.7 per cent deficit and will not lend the nation money at ‘normal rates’.

And again, this is where a European Treasury would come in.

It is clear that while the Eurozone works seamlessly in times of calm, when a storm is whipped up, the fatal flaw arises. Monetary union in a time of crisis simply cannot be maintained without political union of some sort.

There is light at the end of the tunnel though. During the last Ecofin meeting in Brussels, Finance Ministers committed themselves to “safeguard financial stability in the euro area as a whole”.

Quite what that means, given that they have fallen short of bailing out Greece, is anyone’s guess. It is always a case of different weights and different measures and that is the way it is going to remain. As it stands, with no political union, the pressure is being put on France and Germany – the anchors of the Eurozone – to guarantee Eurobonds to re-finance a majority of Greek debt (as long as the latter meets its targets) so as to allow for the remainder to be tackled first. This, they say, should allow the Greek economy to get back on its feet.

Germany has baulked at the fence and is deeply opposed to the ‘plan’. And again, this drives home the point. Monetary union without political union was an exercise of putting the cart before the horse. But look at the EU’s transformation over the years – it has always been putting the cart before the horse and is, at the end of the day, a string of short term solutions which are then turned into long-term legislation. Look at Maastricht, look at Nice, look at the eurozone and look at Schengen. We are not saying that it is all suddenly an unraveling mess... But it is clear that the shortcomings of our union have been exacerbated by the severity of the crisis and the different ways individual nations have sought to address their own economic woes.