RICHARD N. COOPER: Maurits C. Boas Professor of International Economics, Harvard University.

To call the recent EU summit decision on the EU borrowing [euro]750 billion for over thirty years a "Hamiltonian moment" for the European Union is to apply a very elastic interpretation to an historical analogy, and one, like most historical analogies, that can be very misleading.

The U.S. Constitution (1789) enables Congress "to borrow money on the credit of the United States." Alexander Hamilton strongly supported the new constitution, as reflected in his co-authorship of The Federalist Papers. But that was not his Hamiltonian moment. That came when as the first U.S. Treasury Secretary, he successfully advocated consolidation of the already-outstanding debt of the diverse American colonies, incurred during the revolutionary war against Britain and during the early years of independence, in name of the new federal government of the United States.

Variants of this proposal to consolidate some part of outstanding eurozone members' debts were made six to eight years ago, during the so-called euro crisis, but they were all rejected by the German government and its allies.

And even in the United States...