Since then, the public debate has gone quiet around this idea, partly because promises by the European Central Bank to buy government bonds have taken some of the urgency out of initiatives to overhaul the euro zone.
Yet with Slovakia hoping to win an invitation to EMU in April-May this year, the take-it-or-leave-it approach to the euro-zone membership in east-central Europe may give way to a much greater sense ofurgency.
The euro-zone debt crisis has not been resolved, and European politicians seem to have lost their sense ofurgency again once markets halted their plunges.