RT: How would you grade the efforts by Merkel and Sarkozy to save the eurozone, and are they heading in the right direction?
German parliamentarian Frank Schaeffler: No, it's a project that has been designed by those at the top. The European Union needs the steps that would bolster the market economy and that would be adjusted so that they could fit into the market economy. According to the rules of the market economy, if you decide to take on the risks, you have to bear responsibility for these risks. The projects that are enforced from the top will not be able to operate under such conditions. Such projects should work from bottom up.
RT: European bureaucrats and their allies in national governments want to see more fiscal control over national governments, more control over their budgets also. How much centralization does the European Union need, in your opinion?
FS: The European Union does not need more centralization. Excessive centralization has actually been the key problem and the reason why we are facing the current crisis. The euro has been a project of the planned economy developed and enforced from the top. The members that have become part of the eurozone project are very much different from each other and cannot provide for a common homogeneous currency space. That's what has become so obvious under the present situation. Now they want to resolve the problem by introducing more centralization while centralization is the root cause of the problem. Source