"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 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 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 ...