At present, the European Union faces a systemic crisis rooted in the European economic integration, in addition to the sovereign debt crisis and bank liquidity crisis plaguing several of its member states. The contradiction between the monetary system and the financial system of the euro zone, as well as the flaws in the zone’s economic governance structure and policy-making mechanism have been thoroughly exposed.

European currency unification has failed to promote fiscal unification because the EU member states have been unwilling to give up their control over tax revenues. Even the fiscal compact reached at the EU summit last December failed to mention a fiscal union or fiscal transfer payments.

The institutional flaws of the euro zone are to blame for the debt crisis plaguing countries like Greece. The euro zone’s regulations about financial deficit and debt made creditors underestimate the risk of lending money to certain European countries, which now carry heavy debt burdens.

The euro zone neither has a mechanism to prevent the sovereign debt crisis nor has a mechanism to deal with the crisis. Since the crisis broke out in Greece in 2010, the euro zone's decision-making authority has been in a difficult position due to the systemic defect of the zone. Politicians of Europe indeed have the determination to safeguard the euro zone, but they do not have fiscal resources which could be allocated in a unified way, and do not have a proper mechanism to solve the debt issue. Therefore, the crisis keeps worsening and spreading.

Currently, large countries of the euro zone, including Germany and France, still have strong political will and financial resources to safeguard the integrity of the euro zone, but the problem is whether they are willing to shoulder the responsibilities.

If they don't, the euro zone may split. One possible result is that a few countries of the euro zone which are deeply trapped by the debt crisis will have to break away from the zone. The worst result could be that the euro zone will fall apart completely, which will bring a huge financial turbulence to the economy of Europe and even the world.

Even if the euro zone has managed to solve this issue, it would still have to make a historic choice: accelerating the fiscal integration course or facing a retrogression of the monetary integration. It would have to go either forwards or backwards and would not be able to stay where it is. Are countries of Europe willing to give up their fiscal and other sovereignties to truly join in the big family? Only European people themselves could answer this question.