This tension between Europeans' goals and their ability to achieve them is playing out again in the wake of the recent EU summit. Europe's leaders now agree on a vision of what the EU should become: an economic and monetary union complemented by a banking union, a fiscal union, and a political union. The trouble starts as soon as the discussion moves on to how - and especially when - the last three should be established.

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Europe has been here before - in the 1990's, when the decision was taken to establish the euro. At that time, there were two schools of thought. One camp argued that it would be reckless to create a monetary union before economic policies had converged and institutional reforms were complete.

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The consequences have not been happy. Monetary union without banking, fiscal, and political union has been a disaster.

But not proceeding would also have been a disaster. The 1992 crisis proved that the existing system was unstable. Not moving forward to the euro would have set up Europe for even more disruptive crises. That is why European leaders took the ambitious steps that they did.

Not proceeding now with bank recapitalization and government bond purchases would similarly lead to disaster. Europe thus finds itself in a familiar bind. The only way out is to accelerate the institution-building process significantly. Doing so will not be easy. But disaster does not wait.