scholarly journals Towards a Genuine Economic and Monetary Union—Comments on a Roadmap

2013 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ansgar Belke

The Van Rompuy Report and also additional proposals made by the European Commission outlined steps for a 'genuine Economic and Monetary Union'. This article explains, assesses and comments on the proposals made. Moreover, it outlines what could be recommendations in order to achieve a 'genuine Economic and Monetary Union'. For this purpose, details of the Interim Report are systematically evaluated. We also deal with different governance visions emerging from the ongoing euro area crisis and starts from different views of the 'North and the South' of the euro area on this issue. This contribution argues that there is an alternative option to the notion of cooperative fiscal federalism involving fiscal union, bailouts and debt mutualisation: competition-based fiscal federalism accompanied by a properly defined banking union. In order to be a successful one, any deal will have to come up with a successful recipe of how to (re-)create trust between European citizens and their elected governments.

European View ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-218
Author(s):  
Siegfried Mureşan

In a reflection paper intended to generate debate among euro-area governments, the European Commission has put forward ideas on what could be done to deepen the Economic and Monetary Union by 2025. One of the ideas outlined by the Commission is the creation of a euro-area budget. This article reviews the key issues that are relevant in the discussion on establishing such a budget; outlines the possible functions of such a budget, such as incentivising structural reforms or ensuring macro-stabilisation; and discusses the issues of size, funding, moral hazard and governance, while touching upon the role of non-euro-area member states. The article concludes with the assertion that the answer to this question is essentially political in nature and could constitute an example of how member states are ready to integrate further, while giving non-euro-area member states the opportunity to participate.


2018 ◽  
pp. 58-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justyna Sikora

The sovereign debt crisis in the euro area (EA) highlighted shortcomings of its institutional framework – establishment of a monetary union without a central fiscal policy. Although the economic governance in the EA was substantially reformed in the aftermath of the crisis to address its weaknesses, further reforms including some elements of fiscal union are needed to increase resilience of the Economic and Monetary Union to shocks and prevent emergence of economic and financial distress in the future. Based on the theory of fiscal federalism, the article analyses potential institutional reforms aimed at solving the sovereign debt crisis in the EA and indicates which proposals are desired and possible to implement. The research method used is a descriptive analysis of reforms proposed in the literature. In the article, the following reform proposals were assessed: the Debt Redemption Fund, European bonds, assigning the European Central Bank the role of the lender of last resort and a fiscal union with an EA fiscal capacity.


2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
LB ◽  
JHR

In between the writing of this editorial and the publication of this issue of EuConst, the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union, in everyday parlance the ‘Fiscal Compact’, will have been signed by the representatives of the governments of the contracting parties — the member states of the European Union minus the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic. The Fiscal Compact is intended to foster budgetary discipline, to strengthen the coordination of economic policies and to improve the governance of the euro area.


2005 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadine Richez-Battesti

This article seeks to analyze the social impacts of the Economic and Monetary Union and to reflect on the new modalities for producing social norms within this new context. First, after pointing out limits to the nominal convergence that the treaty stipulates for the interim phase, we mil present the new forms of adjustment pursuant to the EMU and their impacts on the welfare state. We will then turn to the responses of some economists to the introduction of a single currency and coordination of budgetary policies, including fiscal federalism. We will try to show the desirability of a European welfare state that would introduce some coherence between the different levels (local, national, Europe-wide) and forms (legislative and union-management) of social regulation ; in essence, a reworking of the idea of social subsidiarity.


Author(s):  
Menelaos Markakis

This chapter looks at the crisis-induced legal, institutional, and economic developments within the Economic and Monetary Union. It consists of two parts. First, there will be a brief sketch of the crisis-related developments. These include the setting-up of financial mechanisms, the European Central Bank’s interventions to combat the crisis, the enhanced oversight of national fiscal and economic policy, and the increased supervision over the financial sector. Second, there will be a ‘first assessment’ of their constitutional and structural implications. Two sets of issues will be examined here: issues of legal principle; and the bearing of the enacted measures on European economic integration. Three key arguments will be made in this chapter. First, it will be argued that the measures enacted have led to legislative fragmentation and have exacerbated problems of transparency and complexity which already existed in this area. Second, it will be shown that the chosen form of action has consequences for institutional balance in the EU, democratic control, and judicial review. Third, it will be argued that the enactment of measures which are only applicable to Euro area Member States has served to deepen economic integration within the Euro area and to further differentiate it from economic integration in non-Euro area Member States. Further, certain areas of the single market have integrated more deeply in the Euro area. It will be concluded that the various reforms which have been implemented have strengthened the EU economic governance framework from a legal, institutional, and economic perspective.


Author(s):  
Eugenia Dumitriu Segnana ◽  
Alberto de Gregorio Merino

The Council of the European Union (EU) occupies a central place in the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), even more so than in any other Union policies. It exercises in this area a variety of roles going from a forum for coordination of national policies to legislative functions and executive powers. The different crises that affected the Union and in particular the euro area in the last ten years have strengthened its prominent position, in no small part due to the Council’s ownership by the Member States. Alongside the Council, the Euro Group, which is presided by a fixed-term president, has developed itself as the informal forum where Ministers from the Member States whose currency is the euro discuss matters of common interest. Its role has been decisive, in particular in the Cypriot and Greek crisis, which could have put into question the very existence of the euro area as a whole.


Author(s):  
Dermot Hodson

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.


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