We have all been greatly affected by the unfolding European refugee crisis and the EU’s failure to offer a coherent response. Another EU default, in the same summer as the Greek debt crisis. Most observers will agree that both crises are not just of the EU’s own making, but that does not erase the fact that the policy responses appear wholly inadequate.

In my previous blog I critiqued the rules-based approach of EMU and Eurozone governance. Not that it is bad to have good rules, but for a well-functioning economic and monetary union a mere set of rules on national budgetary discipline is insufficient. Some kind of fiscal transfer mechanism is required. Today I read that a French member of government, Mr Macron, is of the same view.

It is remarkable that a similar analysis can be made of the refugee crisis, as pointed out in Wolfgang Munchau’s excellent