History of an Incomplete EMU

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Mourlon-Druol
Keyword(s):  
Monetary Union ◽  
Banking Regulation ◽  
Maastricht Treaty ◽  
Policy Coordination ◽  
Economic And Monetary Union ◽  
Monetary Unions ◽  
Single Currency ◽  
Financial Transfers ◽  
History Of ◽  
Banking Regulation And Supervision

The Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) created in 1992 by the Maastricht Treaty was famously incomplete. The decision to create a European single currency was taken without agreeing at the same time on the introduction of traditional accompanying features of some other monetary unions, namely: substantial financial transfers from richer to less developed regions, a credible framework for macroeconomic policy coordination, and European-wide provisions for banking regulation and supervision, to name but a few. The 1992 Maastricht Treaty set out an unfinished, or ‘lopsided union’, with the predominance of monetary union over economic union. The titles of the multiple reports published since 1992, such as the Van Rompuy report of 2012, ‘Towards a Genuine Economic and Monetary Union’, the Five Presidents’ Report of 2015, ‘Completing Europe’s Economic and Monetary Union’, and the Commission’s ‘Reflection Paper on the Deepening of the Economic and Monetary Union’ of 2017 highlight this lopsidedness very well.

The Maastricht Treaty, Economic and Monetary Union and the neo-realist research programme

1995 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph M. Grieco
Keyword(s):  
Monetary Union ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Research Programme ◽  
Maastricht Treaty ◽  
Policy Coordination ◽  
Economic And Monetary Union ◽  
Community Institutions ◽  
Single European Act ◽  
Foreign And Security Policy ◽  
Border Controls

With the Treaty on European Union, or the Maastricht Treaty, into force in November 1993, the member-states of the European Community (EC) appeared to be embarking on a far-reaching enterprise to enhance the authority of Community institutions. Continuing a process that had begun with the Single European Act (SEA), into force in 1987, Maastricht increased the powers of the European Parliament. It established mechanisms whereby EC countries were to seek to improve policy coordination in such diverse areas as social affairs, high technology, border controls, immigration, and anti-crime efforts. It committed the EC members to work toward the establishment of a common foreign and security policy. Most importantly, it laid out a path and timetable for qualified EC members to achieve Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) by the end of the 1990s.

The Open Method Of Coordination: Obstinate Or Obsolete?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth A. Armstrong
Keyword(s):  
Monetary Union ◽  
Policy Coordination ◽  
Economic And Monetary Union ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Open Method ◽  
The Past ◽  
Open Method Of Coordination ◽  
Eu Governance ◽  
National Economic ◽  
New Form

Policy coordination in one form or another has been a feature of EU governance for the past two decades. Developing initially as a mechanism through which to coordinate national economic policies in the shadow of economic and monetary union (EMU), and extending to the coordination of employment policies through the European Employment Strategy, by the 2000s, policy coordination was being heralded as a new form of governance to be deployed to achieve the aims of the Lisbon Strategy of economic and social reform. Indeed, such was the interest in this new form of EU governance, it even acquired its own distinctive nomenclature—the ‘open method of coordination’ (OMC).

21. Economic and Monetary Union

2014 ◽  
pp. 385-404
Author(s):  
Ian Bache ◽  
Simon Bulmer ◽  
Stephen George ◽  
Owen Parker
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
European Community ◽  
Monetary Union ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Economic And Monetary Union ◽  
Single Currency ◽  
Summit Meeting ◽  
The Hague ◽  
Heads Of Government

This chapter examines the various attempts to create the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), which first became an official objective of the European Community (EC) in 1969 but was achieved only thirty years later. In December 1969, the Hague Summit meeting of the EC heads of government made a commitment to the achievement of EMU ‘by 1980’. However, France and West Germany disagreed over how to do it. Germany made anti-inflationary policies the priority, while France made economic growth the priority, even at the risk of higher inflation. The chapter first provides a historical background on efforts to create the EMU before discussing the launch of the single currency, the euro, and its subsequent progress up to and including the eurozone crisis in the late 2000s. It also considers some of the explanations for and critiques of EMU that have been offered by various academic commentators.

7. Policy-Making under Economic and Monetary Union Crisis, Change, and Continuity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dermot Hodson
Keyword(s):  
Monetary Union ◽  
Euro Area ◽  
Sovereign Debt ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
De Novo ◽  
Debt Crisis ◽  
Policy Coordination ◽  
Financial Supervision ◽  
Economic And Monetary Union ◽  
High Stakes

This chapter examines the role of the economic and monetary union (EMU) in the European Union’s macroeconomic policy-making. As of 2015, nineteen members of the euro area have exchanged national currencies for the euro and delegated responsibility for monetary policy and financial supervision to the European Central Bank (ECB). EMU is a high-stakes experiment in new modes of EU policy-making insofar as the governance of the euro area relies on alternatives to the traditional Community method, including policy coordination, intensive transgovernmentalism, and delegation to de novo bodies. The chapter first provides an overview of the origins of the EMU before discussing the launch of the single currency and the sovereign debt crisis. It also considers variations on the Community method, taking into account the ECB and the European Stability Mechanism.

Sense and Nonsense About the Single European Currency

1998 ◽  
Vol 33 (S1) ◽  
pp. 23-37
Author(s):  
Tim Congdon
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
European Commission ◽  
Monetary Union ◽  
Driving Force ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Economic And Monetary Union ◽  
The Political ◽  
Single Currency ◽  
Financial Arrangements ◽  
Complete Transformation

The project to introduce a single currency is the most daring step so far in European integration. Indeed, it can be correctly described as revolutionary. It is much more far-reaching than previous moves in this direction over the last 15 years, such as the harmonisation of regulations or the ending of exchange controls; it is intended not as an incremental advance, but as a complete transformation of Europe's financial arrangements.The audacity of the single currency project is the more striking, in that it is a “revolution from above” rather than a “revolution from below”. The driving force has not been popular dissatisfaction with the existing currency arrangements, but the integrationist ambition of certain members of the European élite, particularly the German Chancellor, the French President and the President of the European Commission. (The integrationist ambition appears to attach to the positions ex officio and to be quite unaffected by the particular individuals who currently fill them.) These members of the élite emphasize the political nature of the single currency project, not the economic benefits. For example, Chancellor Kohl has said that European economic and monetary union (EMU) should prevent future wars in Europe.

The Politics of Economic and Monetary Union

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Jones
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Monetary Union ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
First Century ◽  
Economic And Monetary Union ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Single Currency ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Relationship

The purpose of this chapter is to explain why so many experts were surprised by the politics that surrounded Europe’s economic and monetary union (EMU) both during and after the financial crisis that dominated the first two decades of the twenty-first century. This question is important because it has changed fundamentally the relationship between the euro as a single currency and the European Union (EU) as a larger project. Before the crisis, it was fair to say that the euro existed to serve the EU, as one of the many important building blocks in the wider project of European integration. During and after the crisis, it became more common to assert that an end of the euro would entail the end of the European project. That inversion of priorities was unexpected–and it explains, more than anything else, why the politics of economic and monetary union can no longer be ignored.

Should the euro have been invented if it did not exist? (On the book by O. V. Butorina “An economic history of the euro”)

2020 ◽  
pp. 151-160
Author(s):  
Sergey F. Sutyrin ◽  
Igor O. Nesterov
Keyword(s):  
Monetary Union ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Fundamental Question ◽  
Economic And Monetary Union ◽  
Union Formation ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
European Economic ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
History Of

The article is a reflection on Olga Butorina’s book “The economic history of the euro” published in 2020. The book provides a thorough in-depth analysis of the prerequisites for the European Economic and Monetary Union formation, describes the chronology of its integration, and makes forecasts about the future of the bloc. Some historical events presented in the book can be used as a base for independent cases for lecture courses, including those referred not only to international currency relations topics. The author’s search for answers to the fundamental question of why Europeans needed currency integration is of particular interest to readers. Of course, such a large-scale pamphlet cannot avoid discussable as well as controversial statements.

Stuck on the wrong track: 20 years of euro disillusion, denial, and delusion

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-155
Author(s):  
Jörg Bibow
Keyword(s):  
Monetary Union ◽  
Maastricht Treaty ◽  
Economic And Monetary Union ◽  
Policy Regime ◽  
The Past ◽  
Asymmetric Growth

This contribution assesses the functioning of Europe's Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) during the first 20 years of the euro's existence. It argues that two formative intellectual currents converged at Maastricht to shape the design and reception of the euro regime: ordoliberalism and neoliberalism. Germany's ordoliberalism inspired and shaped the euro regime design. Neoliberalism fashioned the reception of what was agreed at Maastricht under the influence of Bundesbank dogma and power. As a product of the zeitgeist, Europe got stuck with a deeply flawed euro regime. The Maastricht Treaty institutionalized an asymmetric (growth-unfriendly) policy regime. This suited the macroeconomic mainstream well, fighting the ‘1970s stagflation war’ for the past 40 years. Twenty years of euro disillusion have produced the exact opposite: ‘stagdeflation.’

20. Economic and Monetary Union

2020 ◽  
pp. 379-398
Author(s):  
Simon Bulmer ◽  
Owen Parker ◽  
Ian Bache ◽  
Stephen George ◽  
Charlotte Burns
Keyword(s):  
Crisis Management ◽  
European Community ◽  
Monetary Union ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Economic And Monetary Union ◽  
Eurozone Crisis ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Single Currency

This chapter examines the various attempts to create the economic and monetary union (EMU), which first became an official objective of the European Community (EC) in 1969 but was achieved only thirty years later. The chapter first provides a historical background on efforts to create the EMU, including long-standing debates between France and West Germany on its design, before discussing the launch of the single currency, the euro, and its subsequent progress up to and including the eurozone crisis in the late 2000s. On the eurozone crisis, it considers both the short-term efforts at crisis management and the long-term reforms that were implemented in an attempt to prevent further crises. Finally, it considers some of the explanations for and critiques of EMU, including critiques of the responses to the eurozone crisis that have been offered by various academic commentators.

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