The sovereign debt crisis in the euro area is a symptom of policy failures, and recent reforms to the region's fiscal surveillance framework fall short of the quantum leap necessary to ensure stability, according to a European Central Bank paper (ECB) co-authored by Jürgen Stark, a member of the ECB’s executive board, published on Thursday.

Stark, along with co-authors Ludger Schuknecht, Philippe Moutot and Philipp Rother, look at the history of fiscal policies and rules in the Economic and