So it has been clear for months that a legally binding basis for moving toward a European fiscal union, while indispensible, could only take place outside the framework of the Lisbon Treaty, namely on an intergovernmental basis and as an EU-17 or EU-17+, as has just happened. Moreover, alarmist talk of a “split” overlooks the reality that the EU and the monetary union have long been moving at different speeds.
但这几个月来所发生的事件也逐渐证明，虽然我们必须建立一个为最终实现欧洲财政联盟服务的具有法律效力的基础，但这一切必须以政府间联盟以及（刚刚出现的）欧盟-17国或者17+的名义在里斯本条约的框架之外进行。此外，那些发出“分裂”警告的人都忽视了一个事实：欧盟以及货币联盟的构建一直以来都是以不同的速度在推进。