Although significant progress has been made in strengthening the euro area's architecture since the financial crisis 15 years ago, the monetary union remains incomplete, which will leave eurozone countries more vulnerable to financial shocks. The Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) had been designed to force members to take responsibility for their financial stability by prohibiting euro area members from assuming the financial liabilities of others. In the face of the financial crisis of the late 2000s and early 2010s, however, the absence of an overarching financial architecture capable of pre-empting a systemic financial crisis due to the so-called sovereign-bank nexus was recognized as a major design flaw that made the euro area particularly vulnerable to systemic financial crises. In some countries (like Greece, Italy and Portugal), sovereign distress and default caused banking sector instability. In other countries (like Cyprus, Ireland and Spain), banking sector weakness led to sovereign financial distress....
