The European Union could have plans for its own finance minister and a European Monetary Fund completed by 2019, according to the European Commission, as reformers see a chance to push ahead with integration amid booming economic performance in the bloc.
In a new 'Roadmap for deepening Europe's Economic and Monetary Union' the Commission said that with unemployment is at its lowest level since 2008, economic sentiment at its highest since 2000 and Europeans showing the highest level of support for the euro since its inception, the next 18 months provide a "window of opportunity" to deepen integration in the bloc.
The EC's proposals include building a European Monetary Fund based on the European Stability Mechanism, which managed the bailouts of failing economies during the sovereign debt crisis in 2011, and developing the role of a European Union finance minister, two ideas given fresh impetus by the election of Emmanuel Macron as president of France earlier this year.
"The EMF would provide the common backstop to the Single Resolution Fund and act as a last resort lender in order to facilitate the orderly resolution of distressed banks," said the commission, and possibly over time "develop new financial instruments, for instance to support a possible stabilization function."
The EC wants to reach a "common understanding on the role of the [finance minister] by mid-2019," suggesting that the chosen person would also become chair of the Eurogroup and vice president of the commission.
Pro-integration European politicians, particularly in Germany and France, were given a shot in the arm when Macron won the leadership of the bloc's second-largest economy on a staunchly pro-European platform.
However, there was always a material gap between Macron's ideas, shared by a number politicians across the EU, such as a separate euro area treasury and finance minister, and what would be politically acceptable in Germany.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has embraced the idea of a "two speed" Europe, where Germany and France lead a group of members in moving ahead with integration in certain areas while allowing others to converge more slowly. But some concepts related to integration, such as risk transfers from weaker states to stronger ones and the pooling of eurozone debt, remain anathema in her country.
The prospect though, of a more pro-integration tilt to German policy, has been enhanced in recent days by the opening of talks between Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union and the Social Democratic Party of Germany, which has spoken in favor of Macron's proposals, to continue their coalition government.
The setting up of a euro area Treasury is listed by the EC only among "possible further steps" to be taken between 2019 and 2025, along with other more well-established radical ideas such as the issuance of a SNL Article and changes to the regulatory treatment of sovereign exposures at the region's banks.
