My take on the European rumblings about fiscal union came out today in the WSJ: unions http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304707604577428211717125298.html
Basically, the Greman take on fiscal union is the opposite of what the U.S. fiscal union has done for the last hundred years. Ours serves as a way to ease adjustments that the lack of a flexible exchange rate between states makes problematic. The discipline based fiscal union just makes those worse.