Helmut Schlesinger, former president of the Bundesbank: Eiither we get the United States of Europe, that is an actual political union, and then that political union gets its own currency. But then it is no monetary union any longer, but the currency of that new state

"In the autumn of 2011, the conditions were very dangerous," one of its executive directors, Benoit Coeure, told me.
"European banks were facing severe difficulties to fund themselves, to access finance, and we were very close to having a collapse in the banking system in the euro area,
which would have also led to a collapse in the economy and to deflation. And this is something that the ECB could not accept."
Robert Peston, BBC Business editor, 17 May 2012

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So what is going to happen:
creation of the European superstate and survival of the euro,
or a disastrous monetary and political disintegration?
Robert Peston, BBC Business editor, 17 May 2012

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Jean-Claude Trichet - president of the European Central Bank during many of the euro's formative years - made a similar point.
"In a single market with a single currency… it seems to me that Europe could go for a federation."
Robert Peston, BBC Business editor, 17 May 2012

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Helmut Schlesinger, was president of the Bundesbank when sterling was forced out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992.:
- And I would say that either we get the United States of Europe, that is an actual political union, and then that political union gets its own currency.
But then it is no monetary union any longer, but the currency of that new state.
Robert Peston, BBC Business editor, 17 May 2012