Quote Originally Posted by Kralizec View Post
In theory they could have been disciplined a long time ago per existing EU criteria, but this has largely been an empty threat precisely because of the sovereignty-fetishists.
And because the largest players were the ones who consistently flouted these criteria to begin with...

The EU doesn't need a permanent transfer union.
Nah, the EU doesn't need a permanent bail-out union. But a long term transfer union is likely. In a healthy one the net recipients change from time to time as the economy fluctuates, where the money is then used to get out of the net recipient bracket and into the net payer one (which is preferable on the whole, because it implies a far healthier economy). The challenge for these countries is to expand their service sector beyond their internal markets. Portugal and Spain have some success with that in terms of IT & health care.