醒醒吧，欧洲！这次该动真格的了！

    欧元区危机已处于失控边缘。两年多来，欧元区领导人和欧洲央行（European Central Bank）既不愿意、也没有能力解决困扰欧元的真正结构性问题。随着欧元区外围成员国的银行挤兑风险隐现，欧洲领导人是时候面对现实，着手全面整合经济了。

    欧洲领导人周三将举行非正式会谈，试图化解欧洲银行业不断加深的信心危机。有些方案可能听上去不错，但如果没有真正的财政和货币一体化，这些方案就难以落到实处。要实现财政和货币一体化，欧元区核心成员德国必须愿意无条件地承担外围国家债务。相应的，外围国家和核心成员必须愿意放弃对国家预算的控制权，拱手交给德国掌控的欧洲中央货币机构。要进行这样的改变绝非易事，但这会有助于拉动对这些陷入困境国家的投资，实现欧洲亟需的经济增长。

    自从2010年这场危机爆发以来，希腊人就一直在从希腊银行里往外提钱。希腊银行业的存款额已从当时的2,500亿欧元下降到如今仅1,770亿欧元左右，下降近三分之一。但最近，随着希腊大选前景扑朔迷离，希腊政客讨论退出欧元区等等，希腊银行业的存款外流速度开始加快。如果希腊真的退出欧元区，欧洲央行将停止为希腊银行业提供资金，导致银行破产。另外，在西班牙，当地一家主要银行破产，加之穆迪（Moody's）下调西班牙银行业评级，造成数十亿欧元资金流出西班牙银行业，寻找避风港。虽然这算不上一波全面爆发的银行挤兑潮，但存款已开始稳步流出西班牙。

    银行挤兑很少出现，因为大多数国家都拥有存款保障计划，由政府提供担保，承兑所有银行账户一定限额的存款。在欧洲，欧洲央行承担像美国联邦储备银行（Federal Reserve）一样的责任，向有流动性问题的银行提供廉价贷款。但这些贷款必须由拥有最高评级的抵押品来担保，而很多西班牙和希腊银行缺少的正是这样的抵押品。

    意大利总理马里奥•蒙蒂上周末在戴维营（Camp David）举行的八国峰会（G8）上提出了一个旨在解决欧元区资本外流问题的大胆计划。他建议设立欧洲银行存款机制，由欧洲央行担保欧元区所有银行的存款。这意味着希腊、西班牙的银行获得的保障等同于德国、荷兰的银行。

    蒙蒂的计划大体不错，并将在周三会议中进行讨论，但这个计划没有谈到如何解决银行挤兑问题。希腊和西班牙国内本来就有与其他欧元区国家类似的储蓄保险制度。希腊人加速从本国银行中取钱，不只是因为他们担心银行倒闭，还因为他们担忧希腊可能退出欧元区。如果希腊退出欧元区，存在希腊银行中的存款将被兑换成新货币，顷刻贬值。简单地说，存在希腊银行中的1欧元将不如存在德国银行中的1欧元。

    The eurozone crisis is on the verge of spinning out of control. For over two years, European leaders and the European Central Bank have been both unwilling and unable to address the real structural issues that plague the common currency. But with the threat of a bank run looming in the periphery, it's now time for Europe's leaders to face reality and start moving toward full economic integration.

    European leaders are meeting Wednesday in an informal session to try and address the growing crisis of confidence in the European banking sector. Some of the solutions expected to be presented have merit, but they cannot realistically be implemented unless there is true fiscal and monetary integration. For this to happen, the core eurozone members, namely Germany, must be willing to take on the debts of the periphery nations with no caveats. In return, the periphery, along with the core members, must be willing to give up control of their national budgets to a central European monetary authority, with Germany at the helm. Such a change won't be easy, but it will serve to boost investment in the struggling countries and deliver the growth Europe so badly needs.

    Greeks have been steadily pulling their money out of their banks since the crisis began in 2010. Back then there was 250 billion euros deposited in Greek banks, while today there is only around 177 billion euros, nearly a third less. But recent uncertainty surrounding the outcome of the Greek elections accelerated the deposit withdrawals as Greek politicians talked about leaving the euro. Such a scenario would force the ECB to stop funding Greek banks, causing them to collapse. Meanwhile, in Spain, the failure of a major local bank, along with a Moody's downgrade of the Spanish banking sector, caused billions of euros to leave Spanish banks for safer shores. While it wasn't a full on bank run, deposits have now started to trickle out of the country at a healthy clip.

    Bank runs are rare because most countries have deposit guarantee schemes whereby the government insures all bank accounts up to a certain value. In Europe, the ECB acts like the U.S. Federal Reserve by providing cheap loans to banks with liquidity issues. But those loans need to be backed by top-rated collateral, something that is in short supply at many Spanish and Greek banks.

    Italy's Prime Minister, Mario Monti, proposed a bold plan at the G8 summit at Camp David over the weekend to deal with this problem of internal capital flight within the eurozone. He made a case for the creation of a European bank deposit scheme whereby the ECB would essentially guarantee the deposits of all banks in the eurozone. That would mean Greek and Spanish banks would have the same level of protection as German and Dutch banks.

    Monti's plan, which will be discussed at length at Wednesday's meeting, has good bones, but it still doesn't go far enough to solve the bank run issue. Greece and Spain already have their own national deposit insurance, which is comparable to those in other eurozone nations. Greeks are pulling their money out of their banks at an accelerated pace, not only because they fear a bank failure, but also on concern that Greece might exit the euro. If that occurred, the deposits left in the Greek banking system would be converted to a new currency and would instantly be devalued. Simply put, a euro in a Greek bank is simply not worth as much as one in a German bank.