Dispersed Power Preferable for Currency Too

The central problem facing Europeans in the integration process is how to control and limit the Union's power at a central level. The answer is to disperse and divide power as much as possible, both vertically and horizontally. To do so a «super-subsidiarity principle» has to be introduced whereby power can only be granted at a superior level of government if the substantial efficiency of this level with respect to lower ones is entirely demonstrable. Hence the need to oppose the top-down imposition of a single currency managed by a European Central Bank subject to political control and pressure. It would be much more advisable and also less of a risk to have a system of competition between currencies along the lines of the present one. A single currency today would risk destroying the single market, triggering protectionist reactions inside member states. It would thus destroy the only instrument ultimately capable of creating effective convergence – the institutional competition made possible by the «four liberties». It would be far better for countries that have already achieved effective convergence to form a mini-EMU with a single currency. This would compete with other weaker, inflation-prone currencies, and other member states would be free to aggregate at a later date, once convergence among the respective institutions was achieved.