Quote Originally Posted by Sarmatian View Post
Any sufficiently large country has different fiscal rules for different regions/state/provinces.

If you think the fiscal policies are exactly the same in each state in the US, you've got another thing coming. If you think that Moscow regions has the same fiscal rules as Kamchatka, think again. If you believe that same rules apply in <insert Chinese interior state> as in Tianjin or Shanghai province, you're wrong again.

So, whoever thought of that "monetary union is only possible with fiscal union" doesn't really know what he's talking about.
In the US and Russia the federal government takes in federal taxes and spends it in the poorest regions - the Barnett formula does the same for the UK - where regions of Wales, Scotland, the South West and North of England are basket cases.

The EU does this to a small degree with "infastructure" projects, but a much greater amount of German money would need to be spent in Greece, and not Germany, to make fiscal union work.

The Germans will not vote to be poor.