The new EU budgetary tools aim at supporting stability in times of stress through investment continuity and providing incentives for domestic structural reforms. Nonetheless, the architecture of EMU is still incomplete in many respects and euro area policy makers cannot rely solely on ECB interventions. It is essential to ensure that the economic rebalancing mechanism (i.e. the Macroeconomic Imbalances Procedure) operates more symmetrically, i.e.
both for member-states with external deficits and for those with external surpluses. Up to now, the burden of adjustment has fallen, to a very large degree, on Member States with current account and budget deficits (like Greece on the eve of the crisis), while Member States with high (compared to the Macroeconomic Imbalances procedure limits) current account surpluses could have responded more appropriately.