On 3 May 1998, when Europe was completing the last steps before the adoption of the single currency, Tommaso Padoa Schioppa wrote in a column in Corriere della Sera: “the Union has full competence for microeconomic policy […], but its capability for macroeconomic policy is, with the exception of the monetary field, embryonic and unbalanced: it can avoid harm (excessive deficits) but it cannot do good (a proper fiscal policy).
[…] It is thus right not only to applaud yesterday’s step but also to underline its unfinished nature, the risks and the rashness”.