The process of economic policy coordination within the EU is known to have many weak points. Firstly and foremost, the majority of coordination instruments are not legally binding. Moreover, the Stability and Growth Pact has come under strong criticism, and increasing demands for its fundamental reform are being made. The fact that decisions taken by the ECOFIN Council, which is the central institution in the EU process of coordinating the economic policy, are of certain political background also poses a problem. In this connection, in recent years, there were many proposals to increase the efficiency of the coordination of the national policies in the area of economy, employment and budget. Although their importance is appreciated, it must be said that the suggestions are of a fragmentary nature and none of them proposes a thorough reform of the EU economic policy. Meanwhile a more effective economic policy in the EU and in the euro area is necessary not only due to the euro introduction and the EU enlargement (and the future enlargement of the euro area), but also results from the current strategic objective of the EU within the Lisbon strategy.

It seems therefore necessary to settle whether the future EU economic policy should remain coordinated or become more centralized. Coordination, especially on an international scale, is a relatively time-consuming, ineffective and expensive process. Centralization, by definition, eliminates the vast majority of these disadvantages. If the EMU intended to execute a centralized and supranational economic (and budgetary) policy in the future, it would be necessary to establish an "economic policy decision center" as counterparty to the ECB. It would not necessarily have to be a new institution, but could stem from the existing structures, e.g. from the European Commission, whose competences related to the economic matters would be gradually extended. The establishment of such an institution would be a step towards the abandonment of today's imbalance between the centralized monetary policy and the decentralized economic (budgetary) policy, which seems to be difficult to sustain in the long term.

The vision of a unified economic policy in the EU or the euro area presented above, although undoubtedly justified, seems to be rather far-fetched. Obstacles to realizing the vision include a lack of political will, social support, and member states' readiness to forward the jurisdiction over another key area to the supranational level. This has been confirmed in the results of the European Convention and the Draft Constitutional Treaty, which assumes that the status quo will be maintained, i.e. the monetary policy remains the EU exclusive jurisdiction, while member states would keep their full jurisdiction in the economic policy area. However, the current deadlock and lack of breakthrough do not mean that any future activities to enhance the integration in the economic area have been blocked. The existing institutions (e.g. the Eurogroup, the European Commission) and existing procedures (such as the principle of closer cooperation) may be used to for this purpose.