It cannot be when the reaction of governments to the crisis has been to consistently renew their commitment to integration. It is a crisis of market confidence in the willingness and ability of some countries to comply with the demands of the euro – and a crisis of the design of the institutional foundations of the single currency.
Let me briefly explain the reasons for this institutional fragility. 3. The institutional weakness of the euro  From its very conception, like all the big steps in the history of European integration, the euro has been an ambitious and unique project. It combined a centralised monetary policy with decentralised but coordinated economic policies.