The irony of today's meeting of the EU heads of state is that it was originally intended as a meeting where calm reflection could be had about the future shape of economic and monetary union. Instead the only financial item on the agenda is Greece and here again Europe is looking for a fix for a problem, rather than taking a long-term look at the future of the euro and its sustainability.

Towards the end of the worst of the crisis, the four senior EU bureaucrats published what was called the four presidents’ report, looking at the way monetary union might develop and the kinds of policies which might be needed to make it sustainable in the long term.

Subsequent moves were made towards a banking union, under the ECB. But other measures suggested in the study, mainly focusing on the need for fiscal transfers between states, were not acted upon and a decision was made not to do so until after last year’s European parliament elections.

Subsequent to that the new European Commission was going to re-examine the issue and bring proposals to be discussed by today’s leaders meeting. Instead Ukraine tops the agenda and the Greek issue will also loom large.

However sooner or later Europe will have to return to the future of the union. The crisis has shown what some had warned from the start: that Europe is not an optimal area for a single currency, largely because there is no large single budget to smooth out economic shocks, such as exists in the United States, for example, with its large federal budget and in every other single currency area. It was a point made forcefully by the governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney (inset), on his recent visit to Dublin.

Integration in the euro area needs to move a step forward, if the threat of crisis is ever to be finally removed.