The German and French finance ministers have drafted a plan to monitor and regulate the taxation and spending policies of eurozone nations in order to prevent another Greece crisis, according to Spiegel Online.

This would mean that a European Union regulatory body would have the power to dictate changes to a nation’s tax rate or prevent it from spending. Of course, if the nation failed to comply, the body would have to have some teeth to enforce its dictates.

The plan also calls for Eurogroup finance ministers to “take more time for candid and serious discussions on the goal of a functioning currency union.” The two finance ministers have sent their plan to Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker—the chairman of the Eurogroup. It will be discussed at the next meeting of eurozone finance ministers later this month.

Juncker is likely to support the idea. “We need a European economic government in the sense of strengthened coordination of economic policy within the eurozone,” he told the German business daily Handelsblatt on Monday. “The Greece case makes it clear.”

Once the euro was introduced, it was inevitable that the EU would take control of the fiscal policies—taxation and spending—of eurozone members. A common currency cannot work without a coordinated fiscal policy. The founders of the euro were well aware of this.

The eurozone as currently organized was never an end in itself, but rather just one leg of the journey toward a United States of Europe. Its founders knew that once nations agreed to a common currency, it was only a matter of time before they would have to submit their taxation and spending to Brussels. That time is almost here.

Once governments have surrendered control of their own tax revenues to Brussels, further basic powers will soon follow. Watch for Brussels to take responsibility for Europe’s military and defense. When national governments are discussing handing over control of their tax money to the EU, it means that a European superstate is just about here.