But such an appreciation of the euro would bring a reduction in competitiveness that could provide additional pressure for structural reform in continental European product and labor markets.
To quote one of Monnet’s contemporaries, Alcide de Gasperi, “we must begin by pooling only what is strictly essential to the achievement of our immediate aims, and do this by means of flexible formulae which can be gradually and progressively applied”. For these “fathers of Europe”, however, it was self-evident that such incremental measures would gradually move Europe deeper into federalism.