FT:EU starts to think the unthinkable: breakin up?

I am sure there is enough material for a new thread... and many of us are really interested on it!

The Financial Times some days ago:
Europe starts to think the unthinkable: breaking up

The world holds more risks for EU than at any time since end of cold war

Protected content

Multi-speed EU?
Defence collaboration?

"Beyond these relatively cautious proposals, some policymakers and independent analysts are thinking the unthinkable."

"One example is a report by MacroGeo, a consultancy chaired by Carlo De Benedetti, an elder statesman of Italy’s business community.
The report, “Europe in the Brexit and Trump Era: Disintegration and Regrouping”, arrives at bold conclusions. "

Protected content

"It asserts that the EU in its present form is most likely going to decompose, even if pro-integrationists such as Emmanuel Macron, the French independent centrist, and Martin Schulz, the German Social Democrat, win this year’s elections."

“By the Protected content cycle, the EU might be entering the last five years of its ‘real’ existence,” the report says, allowing that the bloc’s formal legal structures centred on Brussels would probably linger on."

"The report contends that, apart from shocks such as Britain’s vote to leave the EU, long-term geopolitical trends are causing the bloc to atrophy. On Europe’s eastern and southern borders, multiple challenges include irregular migration, failing states, terrorism, climate change and Russian revisionism."

The article continues with some extravagant hypothesis...but all those would imply...

"the 19-nation eurozone’s break-up. Finance ministers and central bankers are adamant that such a step would be devastating for Europe’s economy and global financial stability. However, it is being discussed in circles beyond France’s far-right National Front or Italy’s anti-establishment Five-Star Movement."

"Mediobanca, an investment bank that was once the exemplar of northern Italian capitalism, published a controversial report in January which suggested that, in terms of public debt, Italy would not be harmed much by exiting the eurozone."

Protected content

"In a move reflecting frustration at the European Central Bank’s ultra-low interest rates and bond-purchasing programmes, the Dutch parliament voted last month to commission an inquiry into the pros and cons of eurozone membership."