I absolutely think we must maintain the free movement of capital in Europe. The idea of a monetary union becomes rather absurd if that movement is restricted, except in very serious crisis situations (like in Cyprus).

However, this requires some kind of fiscal union or the monetary union will just become a machine producing mass unemployment whenever a member state is hit with an asymmetric shock, as recent years have shown.

This is of course no surprise, but was widely argued even before the monetary union was launched, but I digress.

So if we are to have monetary union, we should have free movement of capital, or otherwise what's the point, and if we have monetary union, we also need some kind of fiscal union.


Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.