It was Jean-Claude Trichet who first used the word.
It is the International Monetary Fund which now demands that the Euro States complete the construction of monetary Europe.
It is now the financial markets that want it.
And this is what the Heads of State and Government are to decide, under constraint, on 17th June.
From the very start the Economic and Monetary Union walked along on one leg and many have spoken out since the creation of the single currency demanding real common economic governance.
The Stability and Growth Pact, even though it has not been respected, has enabled the States to use the euro as a protective shield, allowing their deficits to rise and their debts to increase.
The governments have not played the game of convergence.
With their differences, which on a world scale are just shades of diversity, they have artificially created divergence, forgetting that in the 21st century, pertinent size implies that of a continent and that Europe comprises as a whole in globalisation.
The time for truth has come about rather suddenly, we must learn to set out our national budgets together with our partners on the single market. This is a minimum.
It will be vital to provide the Union with a real European budget, the only one that can provide weight to solidarity between Member States. It is necessary and the Stabilisation Facility of 750 billion euro already seems set to become the first draft of a European Monetary Fund.
As we wait for a real common economic policy there must be a joint effort to reduce debt and public deficits. Sadly it will be with rigour that European integration will move forwards towards a true budgetary federation because we did not want do so when the winds were more favourable.
It is not the moment to plead the cause of national sovereignty. The Commission's proposals, approved by the Finance Ministers and soon to be endorsed by the Heads of State and Government, scrupulously respect national parliaments' rights and Member States' Constitutions. What, incidentally will remain to those who have relinquished their budgetary freedom to the IMF?
The European Union is therefore taking a vital step towards integration under the imperative grip of necessity.
Let us hope that it will encourage it to go resolutely further, voluntarily towards political integration before circumstance forces it to do so.
Since this time we no longer have any choice.
