EU: More Control, More Supervision

This was just too predictable. As we mentioned weeks ago, the EU, particularly the Eurozone would either break up or head towards more centralized control - and we are seeing more and more evidence of their moving towards the more control outcome:

EU, ECB Working Up Eurozone "Master Plan"

The heads of four key European institutions are hammering out a "master plan" to lead the eurozone out of its crippling crisis, a German Sunday newspaper reported.

European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi, European Union president Herman Van Rompuy, EU Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso and Eurogroup chairman Jean-Claude Juncker were tasked last month with working up a reforms roadmap, Welt am Sonntag said.

The plan is to be presented at an EU summit in late June, the report said.

Under global pressure to put an end to the turmoil rocking financial markets and creating deep economic uncertainty, the leaders want to point the way toward a lasting solution, an unnamed high-ranking EU official told the newspaper.

The proposals being considered would include European institutions having more power over national budgets; a European supervisory body for the banking sector with new powers; harmonised fiscal, tax, foreign and security policies; and reform of social welfare programmes.

Barroso pleaded on Wednesday for a tighter eurozone union to avoid "financial disintegration," including "a banking union with integrated financial supervision and single deposit guarantee scheme."

Merkel: Eurozone Needs More EU Supervision

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday (4 June) said she supports more integration in the eurozone - a veiled reference to pooling debt provided EU institutions gain more supervisory powers.

"We need more Europe, not less, especially in the eurozone.

This means that EU institutions, the EU commission included, should be granted more possibilities to control.

Otherwise it would be impossible for a currency union to work," Merkel said alongside EU commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso who visited her in Berlin ahead of a 28-29 June summit.

"The world wants to know how we are picturing the political union matching the monetary union. An answer to this question has to be formulated in the near future and Germany will be a constructive dialogue partner in this regard," she said.

She endorsed the so-called banking union - particularly putting big banks under central EU supervision