Europe not ready for common bonds

Common bonds will tempt governments to get into more debt, the left-liberal daily Süddeutsche Zeitung warns, "because national governments won't have to suffer the consequences of mismanagement, such as higher central bank interest rates, as they did with the lira and the drachma. ... Common bonds would only be acceptable if there is someone to automatically stop governments from incurring debts. But who would that someone be? Commission President Barroso wants to do it himself. The Portuguese wants to limit deficits. The problem is: so far the governments haven't transferred enough of their sovereignty to the EU for it to be able to stop them getting into debt. Exactly fifteen years ago, the German finance minister Theo Waigel set up a deficit ceiling in the monetary union. But that didn't stop  many southern European states from hitting the gas pedal once they had the single currency anyway."

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