In my view, it is crucial to set strict deficit and borrowing limits for national budgets at the EU level. These would apply to all levels of national government, including central, state, and local government and the social security systems. The limits would have to be combined with ultimate powers of intervention for the European Union—powers that would have to be extensive enough to ensure that national governments lose their sovereignty over fiscal policy when deficit and borrowing limits are breached, if not beforehand. Consequently, in such a fiscal union, national parliaments would no longer have ultimate decision-making authority over government budgets.