Philip Stephens (“Germany hides the awkward truth about the euro”, September 13) appears to believe, along with many others, that if only Germany would renounce its hawkish economic stance and agree to central control of eurozone fiscal policy by Brussels, effectively enabling the “transfer union” Germany steadfastly opposes, all would be well. He is badly mistaken.

Such a move would do nothing to resolve the paramount problem bedevilling the eurozone: the urgent social and political need to return the bloc’s weaker economies — Italy and Greece right now and others in the not-too-distant future — to durable economic growth.

Equally, there seems no reason to expect the new bout of monetary stimulus recently announced by Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, to be any more effective than its now cumulatively massive predecessors.