Having outlined all these facts, let us summarise the current situation. The eurozone entered a state of existential crisis in 2010, one which dragged on for seven years in the case of some countries. An example is Greece and Italy, which for many years yet to come will not make up their losses and will not return to the level of development they enjoyed before the crisis. Both during the crisis and once it had calmed down there was a failure to introduce sufficient reforms, which would fully secure the zone before another crisis. According to Wolfgang Münchau, the monetary union doesn’t have a sufficiently strong management infrastructure, which means that it remains internally vulnerable to further shocks^[27]. The prime minister of Portugal is of the same opinion, voiced during his speech at the European Parliament in March of 2018, when he claimed the stability of the EMU in the coming years is highly risky as a result of structural weaknesses and institutional incompleteness^[28]. The reforms discussed in 2018 are still half-baked and do not guarantee complete security for the monetary union.

There are no appropriate institutions within the EMU which would balance the macroeconomic disproportions between the more wealthy, competitive countries and those which are weaker

What is worse however, the EMU is a lastingly asymmetric regime, which means that it accumulates benefits for some and incurs costs for other member states. As a result, there are no appropriate institutions which would balance the macroeconomic disproportions between the more wealthy, competitive countries and those which are weaker. This already has its geopolitical consequences, the most important of which is the rising might of Germany and a weakening of the role of southern European states, as well as the ever-stronger inequality of the economic potential between Germany and France.