Different styles, common goal - to save the euro Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti claimed Europe had "one week to save the euro" ahead of yet another crunch EU summit on Thursday and Friday.France's president has called for a "growth pact", Tony Blair has urged a "grand bargain", the markets demand a "big bazooka", while in Germany there are rumblings about federalism.
Yet the economic and financial solutions to the eurozone crisis are actually surprisingly straightforward.
How so?
Easy. Just ask how the exact same problems have been solved by the members of that other large (and much better functioning) single currency area - the United States of America.
Europe's real problem is that almost all of the solutions are far from politically palatable.
The eurozone's root problem is that the southern European economies have become fundamentally uncompetitive - their wages rose too quickly during the boom years, which led them to import a lot more than they exported, and borrow the difference.
The southern economies' excessive debts, persistent uncompetitiveness and resulting need to continue borrowing - along with Germany's reluctance to give them the money - is what has driven the financial panic that has made it much harder for southern European governments and banks to borrow from markets.
What's more, the seizing up of European financial markets - not to mention the collective determination of Europe's governments to cut spending, and the European Central Bank's focus on price stability - is threatening to push the entire continent into a long and deep recession, something that would merely compound the debt problems.
So, here's what the eurozone may need to do, if it is to climb out of the hole it's in.
All the bad loans made by eurozone banks may need to be cleaned up by injecting loss-absorbing capital into the banks, with the potential losses borne by the eurozone as a whole (because many national governments probably cannot afford it). In the case of Spain's banks, the current bailout deal leaves Spain's government sitting on all the losses.
Deposits at all eurozone banks may need to be guaranteed in euros by the eurozone as a whole, in order to stop panicky investors from moving their money from banks in southern European countries at risk of exiting the euro, to Germany (and increasingly to Switzerland and Denmark).
All of Europe's banks may need to be placed under a common regime of regulation and supervision, with troubled banks given equal access to rescue loans, and being wound up by a central authority when they go bust.
The biggest sticking point is eurobonds. A large chunk of eurozone government debt may need to be amalgamated - with governments standing behind each other's finances - in order to reinforce the commitment of governments to staying in the euro.
One full-blown version proposed by euro-think tank Bruegel would pool debts equal to perhaps 60% of eurozone GDP, which would (counter-intuitively) create strong market-based incentives for governments to be prudent in future.
Another, lighter version proposed in Germany would only pool debts in excess of the 60% level as a strictly temporary measure to make it easier for southern governments to borrow.
A US-style federal budget may be needed to cover the cost of recessions, so that individual governments don't risk going bust when their national economies get into trouble. For example, the cost of a minimum level of social security - especially unemployment benefits - could be permanently shared across the eurozone, paid for by a common income tax.
The European Central Bank may need to have its mandate changed so that it has an explicit dual target to support employment as well as price stability, just like the US Federal Reserve does, as proposed by the new French President Francois Hollande.
The eurozone may need to pay for large-scale investment in infrastructure, particularly in southern Europe, much in the way that West Germany invested in East German infrastructure after reunification in 1990. Proposals on the table include increasing the European Investment Bank's ability to lend, and creating common "project bonds" to finance major construction.
All Europeans (and especially southerners) are having to implement structural reforms that will increase their long-term growth and strengthen government finances, including removing restrictions on market competition, raising the retirement age, laying off (over many years) a lot of state employees, and making it much easier to hire and fire employees.
The ECB and German government may need to stimulate high wage inflation in Germany for several years in order to eliminate the country's current massive competitive trade advantage over southern Europe - something that is already beginning to happen.
In the same way that Washington has helped out struggling US states, the southern European governments may need to be given money (given, not lent) by the rest of the eurozone via direct fiscal transfers, so that they can afford to prop up their economies until they have regained competitiveness. These transfers could end up taking the form of bailout loans that are never repaid.
Structural reforms - particularly labour market reforms - also play a key role in rebalancing, by ensuring that wages in southern Europe do not rise too quickly, as they did in the past decade.
To make a full banking, fiscal and monetary union work, the eurozone governments would need to hand power to a central authority (the European Commission) that can pay for and supervise all of the above, while national governments accept that in future they have to keep their own spending strictly within their limited means.
As most of the above reforms involve Germany sharing its wealth with the rest of Europe (and all European nations handing power to Brussels), Berlin is insisting on the principle of no taxation without representation - in other words a move towards full federalism, with spending and regulation controlled by a directly elected presidency of the European Commission.
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