Well, I see forcing member states to be fiscally responsible (Italy's current expenditures - after removing debt/interest repayments - are curiously forever inc

Well, I see forcing member states to be fiscally responsible (Italy's current expenditures - after removing debt/interest repayments - are curiously forever increasing even under the worst "austerity") something a union should do. The problem is the Euro is not enough to do so. Devaluation won't fix Italy's problems in the long term, it just shifts them into the future. The devaluations of the lira in the last ~30 years of the last century and the flattening economic growth in the '90s are there to prove it. You cannot keep drugging your economy forever, you'll pay for it in the end.