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This paper mainly explains about United Kingdom and European Union relations during Tony Blair's period. After UK's membership to EU in 1973, it had not actively engaged in the European Union's policy initiatives and implementation process. From 1973 to 1996, the successive UK Prime Ministers followed a negative and skeptical attitude towards various EU policy initiatives and none of the UK Prime Ministers showed any special interest to improving its relations with EU. In this juncture, Tony Blair's Labour government made a huge difference in the European Union and United Kingdom's relationship. The Labour party came to power in UK after the 1997 UK General election. It in its 1997 election manifesto introduced the pro-European policy strategy goals and this was whole heartedly supported by the UK people. As a result, it won the election by a huge majority of votes in its party history. The 1997 election gave new direction to the UK's EU policy. Blair's pro-European policy initiatives made a huge change in the EU-UK relations. His government from the very beginning made clear to the UK citizens that their government would take more pro-active and constructive role in the EU policy making and various developmental programmes.

Since 1989 an extremely rapid process of integration through the market has been taking place between the EU & Central & Eastern Europe. This operates through the three vehicles of integration: trade, foreign direct investment, & outward-processing trade, & has been encouraged by trade concessions & the process of legal approximation. In contrast, many of the political questions relating to enlargement in areas such as the Common Agricultural Policy, the Structural Funds, & Economic & Monetary Union still have not been resolved definitively. There remains a binomial asymmetry between the economic (market) & political aspects of integration. 6 Tables, 53 References. [Copyright 2002 Sage Publications Ltd.]

Research background: The core of coordinating a monetary and fiscal policy (policy mix) is based on combining both policies to achieve goals related to price stability, as well as economic growth and employment. In turn, the decisions of economic authorities in the monetary-fiscal game have a significant impact on economic variables in the economy. In the economic literature, the importance of monetary and fiscal policy co- ordination is emphasized as it has a positive effect on the stability of the economy. Purpose of the article: The aim of the article is to identify the dependencies between variables in the scope of fiscal policy and monetary policy under existing economic conditions and then assess their impact on the economy in the EU countries. Methods: To achieve this objective, the following research methods were used: a review of the scientific literature, a presentation of statistical data, and statistical research methods. Findings & Value added: The rationale for adopting such issues is to examine the im- pact of the financial crisis on the decisions of central banks and governments in the EU. The financial crisis has affected a change in the approach to conducting mone- tary and fiscal policy. The changing economic conditions forced economic authorities to take many decisions that affected the interaction between the central bank and the governments in the EU Member States. In many EU countries in the discussed period, there were significant interdependencies between variables in both monetary and fiscal policy.

Why did Euro Area member state governments decide to move to Banking Union (BU) — presented by proponents as a crucial move to 'complete' Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) — only in 2012, over twenty years after the adoption of the Maastricht Treaty? Why has a certain design for BU been chosen and some elements of this design prioritised over others? This paper interrogates previous academic accounts on the move to and the design of EMU — neofunctionalist, intergovernmentalist and constructivist — evaluating their explanatory power with reference to BU. It is argued that the asymmetrical design of EMU generated a variety of spill-overs and, hence, a neofunctionalist drive to supranationalise control over bank supervision and financial support for banks as part of the so-called 'completion' of EMU. However, intergovernmental negotiations informed by moral hazard and domestic political economy concerns explain the asymmetrical design of BU agreed by national governments.

This paper relates the volatility of interest rates to the collective nature of monetary policymaking in monetary unions. Several decision rules are modelled, including hegemonic and democratic procedures, and also committees headed by a chairman. A ranking of decision rules in terms of the volatility of policy rates is obtained, showing that the presence of a chairman has a cooling e¤ect. However, members of a monetary union are better off under symmetric rules (voting, consensus, bargaining), unless they themselves chair the union. The results are robust to the inclusion of heterogeneities among members of the monetary union. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/published

"The Politics of the Eurogroup provides an intriguing look inside the euro crisis and the secretive forum of finance ministers that came to dominate it. The history of the European Union is a history of crises and the leaps of integration they triggered. As the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and global power competition are clouding the prospects of the European economies, the member states are looking for solutions. Yet they find their options highly constrained by the economic and political realities created in the decade of the euro crisis. This book fuses a critical political economy perspective on structural relations within the Economic and Monetary Union with a power-based approach to its institutions. It explains why a political project of European austerity emerged from the Eurogroup and side-lined alternative policies, with repercussions still felt today. The author introduces a series of interviews with key decision-makers - ministers, central bankers, EU officials - as well as leaked audio recordings from Eurogroup meetings to give an authentic report of the power struggles between finance ministers. The book retraces how the Eurogroup rose to prominence in the crisis and how a few northern countries - led by the German and Dutch finance ministries - were able to exploit the group's informal processes to shape the Economic and Monetary Union to their advantage. With its interdisciplinary and investigative approach, this book will be of great interest for scholars and students concerned with European integration, international political economy, economics, institutionalism, and governance. It will also be of value for policy makers in the fields of European politics and economic governance"--

Using panel data on European regions and applying Analysis of Covariance, our study provides an empirical assessment of the relative importance of national, regional and spatial factors for explaining variations of productivity. Our analysis shows that initial economic conditions or agglomeration and centrality are indeed relevant for differences in productivity levels. What is far more important, however, is which country a region belongs to. Productivity differences in the European Union are thus obviously dominated by national regimes. In light of the historically strong influence of the nation states, this result may come as no surprise. What is surprising is the fact that the role of countries has not decreased over time, despite intensive integration efforts (European Single Market, Economic and Monetary Union).

Trade unions in the Greek system of industrial relations (the system of wage and employment regulation, the bargaining structure and behaviour) have shown signs of change and modernisation since the late 80s and the early 90s. The question is whether the model of industrial relations that was dominant in the 70s and 80s, (state-controlled compulsory arbitration, conflict-oriented collective bargaining, political-party-dominated trade-unionism) has given way to a modem model of industrial relations (development of bipartite regulation, consensus-oriented collective bargaining, more union independence vs. the state and the party rivalries). To explore the prospects of modernisation of Greek trade unions we will discuss changes in the bargaining behaviour (content of collective agreements, strike activity, performance etc.) and the bargaining structure at the national, branch and company level. The role of new labour legislation in modernisation is also discussed. The influence of the Delors initiative for European social dialogue is taken into account as a factor that shaped the behaviour of the major social partners in Greece. The prospects for modernisation are finally evaluated in the context of the restructuring of the Greek labour market and the difficult convergence criteria for Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). The process of modernisation is taking place in conditions of rising unemployment, increasing labour market segmentation, real wage cuts and deindustrialisation, which may buttress elements of continuity in Greek industrial relations.

"The Politics of the Eurogroup provides an intriguing look inside the euro crisis and the secretive forum of finance ministers that came to dominate it. The history of the European Union is a history of crises and the leaps of integration they triggered. As the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and global power competition are clouding the prospects of the European economies, the member states are looking for solutions. Yet they find their options highly constrained by the economic and political realities created in the decade of the euro crisis. This book fuses a critical political economy perspective on structural relations within the Economic and Monetary Union with a power-based approach to its institutions. It explains why a political project of European austerity emerged from the Eurogroup and side-lined alternative policies, with repercussions still felt today. The author introduces a series of interviews with key decision-makers - ministers, central bankers, EU officials - as well as leaked audio recordings from Eurogroup meetings to give an authentic report of the power struggles between finance ministers. The book retraces how the Eurogroup rose to prominence in the crisis and how a few northern countries - led by the German and Dutch finance ministries - were able to exploit the group's informal processes to shape the Economic and Monetary Union to their advantage. With its interdisciplinary and investigative approach, this book will be of great interest for scholars and students concerned with European integration, international political economy, economics, institutionalism, and governance. It will also be of value for policy makers in the fields of European politics and economic governance"--

Procedente de la colección de la Fundación FAES ; La evolución de la Unión Europea hasta el año 2002 ha conseguido ofrecer un marco complementario a la acción de los Estados miembros. Al alcanzar en ese año la Unión Económica y Monetaria se ha producido un giro hacia el concepto de unión política pero ¿qué significa? ; The evolution of the European Union until the year 2002 has managed to offer a complementary framework to the action of the Member States. When the Economic and Monetary Union reached that year, there was a shift towards the concept of political union, but what does it mean?

AbstractThis paper studies the impact of wage growth divergence on business cycle co‐movement in the context of currency unions. While the theoretical literature on optimum currency areas highlights the equilibrating effect of divergent wage growth after asymmetric exogenous demand shocks via the external demand channel, recent literature on euro area imbalances emphasizes its dis‐equilibrating effect as a source of asymmetric domestic demand shocks, and therefore suggests a negative link to business cycle co‐movement. Our empirical results reveal that the latter effect has been clearly dominating in the euro area: Wage growth differentials across countries – while of minor importance for non‐euro area EU countries with sovereign currencies – significantly reduce business cycle co‐movement within the monetary union and thus increase the cost of the common monetary policy. The large magnitude of the effect calls for enhanced co‐ordination efforts of wage policies in the euro area.