Can Macron and Merkel agree on how to fix the eurozone? | Barry Eichengreen

With a dynamic new leader in France and a fresh mandate in Germany, there would be a chance to correct monetary union's flaws

With Emmanuel Macron's victory in the French presidential election and Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union enjoying a comfortable lead in opinion polls ahead of Germany's federal election on 24 September, a window has opened for eurozone reform. The euro has always been a Franco-German project. With a dynamic new leader in one country and a fresh popular mandate in the other, there would be an opportunity for France and Germany to correct their creation's worst flaws.

But the two sides remain deeply divided. Macron, in longstanding French tradition, insists that the monetary union suffers from too little centralisation. The eurozone, he argues, needs its own finance minister and parliament. It requires a budget in the hundreds of billions of euros to underwrite investment projects and augment spending in countries with high unemployment, Macron insists.

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