From the Center for European Reform, this is the CERR podcast.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the CER podcast.

My name is Sophia Beshe.

I'm a research fellow at the Center for European Reform.

And today I'm in conversation with Christian Odendale, the CEO's chief economist.

Hi, Christian. Hi, Sophia. So the CIA has just launched a major new report, re-launching the EU.

And Christian has written a chapter on reforming the Eurozone. And that's what we want to talk about

today. Christian, the Eurozone is growing strongly and economic sentiment is at its highest level since 2001. The

Eurozone is out of the woods, isn't it? Why do we even need to talk about it in a report

about relaunching the EU? That's a fair question considering how strong the European economy

is doing, but I would argue that the Eurozone is not really out of the woods. Economically,

it's true. The Eurozone is recovering,

and that recovery has been long overdue, but it would need to run like this for a long time

to overcome, for example, the still high unemployment, low inflation, until basically the Eurozone

is at full capacity for interest rates to normalize for those highly indebted countries to reduce

public debt levels and also over- indebted countries to reduce public

debt levels and also over-indebted private sector. So the recovery is welcome overdue, but

it's not sufficient for the Eurozone to be out of the woods forever. It is helping, but the Eurozone

still needs reform to be viable in the long term. So in your research, you often make the point

that the Eurozone is not just an

economic project, it is also a political project. And the economic recovery, marginal as it may be

at the moment that you talk about, how is that reflected in the political sides of the Eurozone,

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