The managing director of the International Monetary Fund Christine Lagarde has figured it all out for us. Her advice is to integrate the Eurozone economies closer together. And introduce more central control over the monetary and economic side of things.

Yeah, right. If we wanted to make sure that the next economic problem anywhere in the EU takes the whole of it down under we would heed her advice. Oh, absolutely, the tightly integrated economies are a clear winner when it comes to sinking quickly.

But I hope the people at the top realize that they are not outside EU, they are inside it, and it is not in their best interest to build a Titanic out of the EU countries. The strength of the German economy and its resilience to all sorts of political and economic crisis lies in its loose integration and the freedom of every land to develop its own strengths. And that’s a good principle to apply to the whole of EU as well.

Sure, the development and this silly economic growth are not as fast as they would be in a tightly controlled and integrated economy but the advantages of a diversified locally directed economy were clearly seen during the last crisis when Germans could so rightly say “He who laughs last, laughs best.”… -->