Did Putin do the Euro zone a favor?

Austan Goolsbee writes that

The fundamental weakness of the euro zone is that it relies on hard-hit economies—such as Greece and Spain—to endure austerity packages for years to try to raise productivity and cut labor costs enough to make the fixed exchange rate within Europe sustainable. The skeptics predict that eventually these smaller, weaker economies will just give up—unless Germany, with its booming exports, subsidizes them over the long term, a prospect the Germans vehemently oppose.

Russia's moves are particularly menacing to the many recent additions to the European Union that did time behind the Iron Curtain, such as Bulgaria, Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Hungary, Romania, and the Czech Republic. These very same countries are next in line to join the euro zone, but they have resisted the required tough conditions such as meeting inflation, deficit, debt and interest-rate targets.

The political will of these countries to actually bite the necessary bullets to join the euro zone had been nonexistent—killed by the euro zone crises of the last several years. Yet following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, they're back. Poland, after years of delaying conversion to the euro, now says it's seriously considering it.

For European economic integration to succeed, the countries with the weakest economies must be willing to endure pain in order to remain in or join the euro zone. Of the 15 countries in the EU with unemployment rates above 9% in the latest Eurostat statistics, almost half share a border with Russia or Ukraine. Of the 13 countries with unemployment below 9%, only one does (Romania).

The Russians seem to have found the one thing the EU has been searching for all along: a lasting way to convince peripheral economies to endure the sacrifices needed to be part of the euro zone. All it took was a reminder of how bad things can get for countries on their own.

Contrast the news on the banking systems as an example. Last week, Europeans announced a deal on a comprehensive banking plan that will give the European Central Bank resolution authority over all banks in the euro zone. Local authorities will surrender some national autonomy in a crisis and that may be unpopular. Alternatively, the Russians announced that Ukrainian banks will be treated as foreign in Crimea and held to Russian laws. The currency will convert to the ruble, and no one in Ukraine knows for sure whether their assets are safe. Bank runs were widespread in the days before the invasion.