Does mere survival count as an achievement? It rather depends on whether your continued existence is in doubt or taken for granted. By that standard, the 2010s were a greater success for Europe’s monetary union than the preceding decade. And that has implications for what to expect for the euro in 2020.
The eurozone sovereign debt crisis caused an enormous shift in European politics. Leaders were forced not just to patch together emergency institutional reforms, but also to accept that further ones were required. The “incompleteness” of monetary union has become commonplace. A legacy of the crisis is a shared understanding that tools are needed to stabilise banking systems against macroeconomic shocks and capital flight.
The past year should have been a year of progress. Contrary to the stereotype that eurozone reform is doomed to hopeless deadlock, a lot was under way. An upgraded treaty for the European Stability Mechanism, the sovereign rescue fund, was more or less ready by the summer. On banking union, finance ministers were optimistic they could put together a “road map” for the heads of government to endorse at the December euro summit. An extra boost was German finance minister Olaf Scholz’s public acceptance that common European deposit insurance could be part of a completed banking union.