Mr. José Leandro:

Political union is a classic concept. Basically, it is a culmination of a process. On the fiscal side, in concrete terms, when we reach a point where decisions are taken in common on debt or on deficit we would probably be reaching one of the dimensions of the political union completely. When national parliaments are more directly and more closely involved in the European debate we would have achieved a certain degree of political union. Personally, I do not think political union means a central government with a huge budget; that is not what it means. It means the ability to take common decisions on fundamental issues that are very important for the monetary union but which are grounded on a level of accountability and legitimacy that is accepted.