There would be no free lunch in terms of higher wages in Germany and higher exports of deficit countries. And the notion of a free lunch takes us directly to my second objection against the burdensharing approach. To see the argument, we have to look beyond the borders of Europe. After all, Europe is not an island but part of a globalised world.
And at the global level, we are competing with economies such as the United States and China. Now, what would happen if the euro-area countries followed the approach of meeting in the middle in terms of competitiveness? Well, ultimately the euro area as a whole would become less competitive vis-à-vis the rest of the world.