Whenever – as a reaction to the Brexit-vote – calls are made for greater mutualisation of debt, I think it’s rather like a ship that is listing: when the passengers – eager to help – rush to the lower side of the ship then, contrary to their good intentions, they are not helping to remedy the unfortunate situation at all but are, in fact, making it worse.
The second way to restore the balance between liability and control, meanwhile, would be to strengthen the Maastricht approach based on individual responsibility. This would leave economic and fiscal policy, as well as ultimate liability for public debt, in the hands of the individual member states. But how could such a decentralised approach work better in future than it has done in the past?