CHRISTOPHER WHALEN: Chairman, Whalen Global Advisors.

The European Union has agreed to a coronavirus relief plan based on the issuance of common debt. Is this a breakthrough that will strengthen the Union or merely a necessary concession by the Dutch and Germans?

The reference to a "Hamiltonian Moment" concerns when America's first Treasury secretary consolidated the war debt of the thirteen colonies with the issuance of common debt. But the more important event, Federico Pastor reminded us in the Financial Times this past June, was the creation of the federal government as an entity independent of the various American states.

Only by creating an agency that could act on behalf of all of the United States did America truly move towards Union. The immutable fact of Union was forged in the fires of the Civil War, which forever closed the door on states voluntarily exiting the federal republic.

So is Europe moving in the same direction? No, by definition, it is not. First, the need to come together to address Covid-19 does not necessarily translate into a broader acceptance of the end of national autonomy that is required for true union.

For example, since everybody follows the "shock doctrine" of using crises to advance the cause of greater EU integration, there are attempts to push things further because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Proposals such as taking away budgetary rights from Germany's parliament, for example, have so far generated significant resistance. Will such efforts help or hinder EU integration?

"Were the European Union's actions strictly a Covid-19-related initiative likely never to be repeated short of another pandemic?" asks one prominent political observer in Berlin. "Further, what would be the implications if any for Europe's sovereign debt market and the euro were the EU pandemic...