HELSINKI - The European continent looks solid, geologically. The European Union may well plod on, give or take a few countries. The euro area and currency are less safe bets.

We can be almost sure of European countries and banks being downgraded, of high borrowing costs for most governments and of recession compounding the problems.

We can also see that a number of European summits have failed to catch up with the markets. Few international partners are going to fill the empty coffers, even for political gain.  

The latest European Council gave us a roadmap to the closest lamp post, but no more. Much blood and tears may flow under the bridges before the next powwow in a month and a half.

I am as much for hair shirts and self-flagellation for my neighbours as the next man, but afraid that penance for the sinners falls short of the solutions needed.  

Is it possible that repentance and atonement are needed more widely, perhaps even more profoundly?

Let us return to the birth of European integration and to the creation of the euro. Are there original sins we have not as yet faced up to? Have we committed transgressions on the road?

The European Union is still basically owned by the member states, subject to unanimity and national ratifications, thus almost impossible to reform. Britain last week, next week another member state...

The euro area has even less in the way of solid structures, despite being recently topped up by monthly summits between national leaders.   

A currency area can hardly be described as ideal, if almost half of the people carry the cross of mortification and more than half of the population sees its liabilities growing sky-high, both groups without real choice in the matter.

When democracy comes into play, it is seen as a danger instead of an opportunity, because it takes place in a national setting where every misstep can bring down the whole house of cards.

Creating the euro currency without a sovereign was a mistake, but persisting is a mortal sin.

I am not wise enough to know if the eurozone will split, or the euro crash, or even magically survive intact, but I am deeply worried.

I feel reasonably sure that much more is needed, if we want the euro area to return to growth and prosperity in a foreseeable future, possibly ever.

Are we beyond absolution?

This brings us back to the roadmap. The new one has to achieve two things: remedy the fundamental flaws of the current currency, and show the destination and the stations in between.

We really have to leave the old quarrels between intergovernmentalists and federalists behind us. We have already seen where intergovernmental solutions lead, and there is little time left to create  credible structures.

Why do countries with high debt levels and deficits, such as the USA and the UK, have much lower borrowing costs than the comparable basket cases in the eurozone? The main difference seems to be that the euro is a zombie currency, without a sovereign.

The euro, like all currencies, needs a sovereign. We in Western and Central Europe are past the ages when a sovereign could be instituted by or between princes or dictators. This means that the new polity at European level has to be based on its citizens, with a politically accountable government, respecting fundamental rights, providing good governance and acting transparently.

The Basic Law must provide for proportional representation through free and fair elections, robust structures and sufficient powers, including a real federal budget and taxes, determined according to majority rule. The people is sovereign, in short.

Foreign policy, security and defence, seem natural tasks for the European level, while we are at it.

Federal Europe has to start as a coalition of the willing, among the electorates voting for a common future. Referendums would apply in states joining later, as well.  

When a credible polity has been outlined enough to put it on the drawing board, our leaders can trace the necessary steps along the route.

In the short term the European Central Bank and eurobonds are needed to prevent meltdown.  

Preserving something akin to the existing benefits and responsibilities for EU members remaining on the outside is going to prove tricky, but hardly insurmountable.

European level democracy may look like a stark choice, but it should not. It only represents an new level and ... we just need to contemplate the alternatives.

Continuing to make more wrong decisions in the short term, as if there wasn't time for the right choices, is dangerous.

Your choice: credible Utopia or worsening Dystopia?