Expulsion from the eurozone has to be the final penalty

by Mark Rutte and Jan Kees de Jager

Financial Times
September 7, 2011

The eurozone is in stormy waters. The turmoil on the financial markets shows no sign of abating. Tackling the debt crisis is complex and calls for several immediate measures. But amid our hectic day-to-day efforts to fight the crisis, we need to ask how we can guarantee a stable euro and prosperous Europe in the long term.

What is to be done? Our answer is that we must anchor the agreements we have made more firmly and take tougher action to enforce them.

We all know the saga of the last decade. Strict budgetary rules were laid down in the Stability and Growth Pact, a no bail-out clause was included in the relevant treaty. So far so good. But the main cause of the current problems is that some countries played fast and loose with the very rules designed to guarantee budgetary discipline. Other countries allowed that to happen, and this took place at a time when the financial markets were being rapidly integrated. The result is that acute financial problems can spread from one country to another at lightning speed.

So what is to be done now? We must return to the anchors of the eurozone. The rules are still valid, but all participants must abide by them. If the eurozone is to survive in its present form as a stable currency union that supports the internal market and our prosperity, there needs to be radical break with the past.

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