The Eurozone is the subset of European union countries that use the Euro as their currency.

Finally, adverse contagion is extending beyond the 17 countries in the eurozone.

In fact, the two instruments may well be complementary in eurozone countries.

Indeed, all EU countries not just eurozone members would benefit from such a framework.

A few eurozone members financial troubles have become a problem for all.

In a debt restructuring, the northern eurozone countries (including France) will see hundreds of billions of euros go up in smoke.

No one doubts that Germany and most other eurozone members would prefer the single currency to continue.

Thus, Germany and the eurozone core have increasingly outsourced official financing of the eurozone s distressed members to the ECB.

And now European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, backed by most of the troubled eurozone countries, is again proposing Eurobonds and debt mutualization schemes.

And yet the same policymakers believe that the rest of the world should bail out the eurozone.

The rest of the world led by the eurozone governments would rightly turn their backs.

Even if most eurozone countries retain the single currency, it will be because abandoning the euro would be financially painful.

That is where the eurozone is today. A debt crisis that erupted in Greece, the eurozone s outer periphery, has migrated with a vengeance towards the core, so much so that the survival of the eurozone itself is at stake.

Common institutions are needed to ensure that all EU countries interests are protected, and to act as a bridge between eurozone and non eurozone member states.

Eurozone countries, together with others willing to join the euro in the future (the eurozone plus ), could simply decide to use the legal means already available to increase cooperation.

That is why interest rate spreads in the eurozone periphery are widening again now.

Socializing public debt is already posing a risk to the still stable eurozone countries.

Indeed, all eurozone members are now experiencing weak economic growth, if not recession.

The third stage of the eurozone crisis will arrive when the economic strength of the core is in doubt.

A debt crisis that erupted in Greece, the eurozone s outer periphery, has migrated with a vengeance towards the core, so much so that the survival of the eurozone itself is at stake.

Just ask any of the large international banking groups headquartered in financially stressed eurozone countries.

As a result, the eurozone has become divided into creditors and debtors, with the creditors in charge of economic policy.

And they express considerable pride in the euro s growing role as an international reserve currency, as well as resolve to do whatever it takes to defend the currency union s integrity.

Even if most eurozone countries retain the single currency, it will be because abandoning the euro would be financially painful. Now that its weaknesses are clear, the euro will remain a source of trouble rather than a path to political power.

Not surprisingly, workers are leaving the eurozone s crisis countries, but not necessarily for its stronger northern region.

Their exports would become less competitive, and they would encounter heavy competition from the rump eurozone in their home markets.

So a key challenge in resolving the eurozone crisis is to reduce the southern countries debt burdens.

Political upheaval in any of the southern countries would be sufficient to reignite doubts about the eurozone s future.

It is not just confidence in Europe s periphery that is waning. The survival of the euro itself is being put in doubt.

When a fiscal crisis hit Greece, the financial world suddenly discovered that eurozone members had put themselves in the position of developing countries.

No one doubts that Germany and most other eurozone members would prefer the single currency to continue. Today s uncertainty concerns whether this preference may be overridden by pressing considerations of national politics, or resentment at the slow pace of reform in certain eurozone countries.

If the euro is to survive, eurozone members must act, while other EU members with various levels of commitment to European integration remain on the fringe.

It is time for Greece, other eurozone members, and the European Commission to start thinking seriously about that option.

The peripheral countries external deficits are falling rapidly, thus diminishing the need for foreign financing.

Since eurozone countries trade extensively with each other and the rest of the world, their slowdowns have contributed significantly to a decrease in global trade, in turn undermining global growth.

That left individual eurozone members exposed to brutal pressure by financial markets at a time when excessive private debt was turned into unsustainable public debt. Suddenly, the eurozone had become a straightjacket.

For several years, I have proposed a policy that combines growth and fiscal rectitude. Let all the heavily indebted southern European countries jointly agree to join a weak euro, which would float against the stronger northern euro.

In the eurozone s member countries, only fiscal policy is possible at the national level, because the European Central Bank controls monetary policy.

It opted for delay in the hope that the eurozone s most vulnerable members would reinforce their defenses against Greek contagion.

The eurozone now rests on the shaky basis of a confederation of states that are committed both to a monetary union and to retaining their fiscal sovereignty.

More eurozone countries will be forced to restructure their debts, and eventually some will decide to exit the monetary union.

Like individuals in a society, eurozone countries are both independent and interdependent.

Here, the model to follow is not the euro, but Latin America s Southern Common Market (Mercosur) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Many European leaders believe that the rest of the world owes the eurozone a bailout because the currency union is just an innocent bystander.

This has also shifted the burden of adjustment disproportionately onto countries with floating currencies, such as the euro and the Canadian and Australian dollar.