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A response to Giorgio La Malfa's "The Orphaned Euro" (2002) challenges his argument that the European Monetary Union (EMU) will remain structurally weak as long as the imbalance between monetary & political union persists. Although his assessment must be taken seriously, it is suggested that the European Central Bank is not as singular as La Malfa implies. In addition, he inaccurately attributes the euro's "weakness" to its unfavorable exchange rate against the dollar even though that comparison was never an important issue to the EMU & the strong dollar has not harmed Euroland's economies. It is maintained that the EMU has accomplished its initial goals of ending divisive monetary quarrels among EU partners, halting Europe's tendency toward inflation, & stabilizing internal prices. The impact of globalism on the EMU's initial rationale & policy is discussed, & it is concluded that if La Malfa's dire prediction is realized, it will not be due to structural problems within the European Central Bank, but the result of a breakdown in political consensus among member states. J. Lindroth

Europsku uniju danas čini 27 država. U 19 država te zajednice zakonsko je sredstvo plaćanja zajednička valuta - euro (europodručje) i te države tvore Europsku ekonomsku i monetarnu uniju, a u 8 država članica zakonska sredstva plaćanja jesu nacionalne valute. Postojanje dvojnog monetarnog rješenja u Europskoj uniji omogućava postupnost u procesu uvođenja zajedničke valute sukladno mogućnostima i spremnosti pojedinih država članica za zamjenu nacionalne valute eurom i slijedom toga, u konačnici, takvim rješenjem osiguran je i pristup monetarnoj uniji. Potpisivanjem Ugovora o pristupanju Europskoj uniji svaka država obvezuje se uvesti zajedničku valutu, ali autonomno odlučuje o trenutku započinjanja toga složenog procesa.1 Nakon toga slijedi ispunjavanje uvjeta konvergencije i dvogodišnje razdoblje pridržavanja propisanih kriterija i potom uvođenje zajedničke valute Unije. ; The European Union today comprises 27 member states, 19 of which share a common currency - the euro (euro area). These states form the European Economic and Monetary Union, the eurozone, and in the remaining 8 member states the legal tender is the national currency. The existence of a dual monetary solution in the European Union enables a gradual transition in introducing the common currency in accordance with the possibilities and readiness of individual member states to replace the national currency with the euro, and consequently, this solution ensures access to the monetary union. When each state signed the Treaty of Accession to the European Union, it committed to introduce the common currency, autonomously deciding on when to start this complex process. Then followed meeting the convergence conditions and a two-year period of keeping to the criteria prescribed, after which came the introduction of the Union's common currency.

Examina la formulacion e instrumentacion de la politica monetaria en Europa y otros paises, en un marco en el que la busqueda de la estabilidad de precios se ha convertido en el fin primordial de la politica monetaria y en el que un creciente numero de bancos centrales ha pasado a disponer de considerables margenes de autonomia. Para ello, el trabajo comienza exponiendo las razones que han llevado a la adopcion generalizada de estabilidad de precios como objetivo central de la politica monetaria. Asimismo compara las ventajas e inconvenientes de diferentes estrategias para alcanzar dicho objetivo. Posteriormente, analiza la utilidad de los objetivos intermedios de politica monetaria para el logro de la estabilidad de precios, a la luz de experiencias recientes de varios paises. Concluye con un examen de las reformas de caracter tecnico y operativo que estan en curso en la Union Europea, con objeto de preparar la futura politica comun. (cg) (jvi) (mac)

Provides transcriptions of speeches delivered at the Brussels Conference, 18 Mar 2002, & the Tehran Conference, 26 Oct 2002, which centered on political & economic relations between the Islamic Republic of Iran, the European Union, & Belgium. Remarks are offered on trade; economic cooperation; the role of culture in Iran-EU relations; Iran's geopolitical milieu; Belgium-Iranian bilateral relations; & macro- & microeconomic, financial, & monetary facets of these relations. J. Zendejas

Máster Universitario en Finanzas ; The beginning of the financial crisis, the largest since 1929, had a devastating impact on the economy of the European Union and created a disruption in the macroeconomic indicators affecting GDP growth (-2.8% in 2009), unemployment rate (11% in 2013) or inflation, which remained negative in the second half of 2009. The economy had a problem with the banking sector and they were bailed in with public capital. After this first period, the public debt crisis came up immediately, pushing the European Central Bank to give facilities to the countries in many ways. This framework lead into a historical period in terms of economic measures, intended to dynamize the Eurozone's economy. An extraordinary battery of expansive monetary policies was implemented to provide liquidity to the system and maintain inflation at acceptable levels. For the first time in history, interest rates where below cero (the situation is maintained nowadays) and this factor motivated the current paper.

AbstractThis study analyses the allocation of power in the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) as it enlarges to accommodate new members of the economic and monetary union. For this purpose, two classical power indices that have their origin in solutions to co‐operative games are applied. First, an assessment is made of the effects of enlargement on the voting power of different subgroups of the Governing Council that arise in the wake of the continuous accession process. Second, a systematic comparison is carried out to the status quo rule ('one member, one vote') with respect to the voting power of the ECB Executive Board and to the representativeness of European monetary policy, along with the potential for its renationalization.

In the recent years there has been an intense discussion whether the actual behaviour of fiscal authorities is consistent with cyclical stabilization objectives. The question of the appropriate fiscal policy is gaining recognition especially for the countries of the euro area after entering the European Monetary Union (EMU). Therefore, the aim of this paper is to evaluate the activity of the fiscal policy before and after the entrance to the euro zone for each individual EMU country in 1995–2010 period. For this purpose we will use the cyclical adjusted balance, which is the common tool used to estimate fiscal policy stance. The analysis of the cyclically adjusted balance gives an additional insight into the former activity arrangements of the fiscal policy, which contributes to gauge the ex-post estimation of the fiscal policy. On this base we can determine the causes of general government budgets imbalance in the past. Despite this fact, we should be aware of some caveats in the assessment of cyclical adjusted balance, which appear due the inconsistency in measurement of output gap and potential GDP growth.To evaluate pro-cyclical or countercyclical fiscal policy stance we compare the dynamic evaluation of the cyclically adjusted balance and output gap. Namely, changes of the cyclically adjusted balance in consecutive years indicate the orientation of fiscal policy, i.e. the fiscal impulse. By comparing the change in the cyclically adjusted balance and output gap between individual years, which indicates fluctuations in the economic cycle, it is possible to assess the orientation of fiscal policy, i.e. the fiscal position. The fiscal policy can be considered as countercyclical if it is expansive in the situation of negative output gap and restrictive in the situation, when the actual growth of GDP is above its potential rate. On the other hand, fiscal policy is characterized to be pro-cyclical if in the situation of negative output gap the government uses restrictive fiscal instruments and when the fiscal ...

European Integration was constructed as a primarily economic project. In its formative phase ordoliberal scholars started to promote the understanding of the ensemble of European economic freedoms togther with a system of undistorted competition as the legal framework and normative core of the EEC, i.e. as Europe's 'economic' constitution. Economic and Monetary Union as institutionalized by the Maastricht Treaty were expected to complete this project. However, the whole edifice started to erode immediately after its establishment. Following the financial and the sovereign debt crises, EMU with its commitments to price stability and its focus on monetary politics is by now widely perceived as a failed construction precisely because of its reliance on inflexible rules. The European crisis management seeks to compensate these failures by regime which disregards the European order of competences, des-empowers national institutions and burdens in particular Southern Europe with austerity measures. This new mode of economic governance establishes pan-European commitments to budgetary discipline and macroeconomic balancing. The ideal of an ordering of the European economy 'through law' is thereby abolished while the economic and social prospects of these efforts seem gloomy and the Union's political legitimacy is eroding.

"This book proposes an alternative political economy framework in which to analyse the question of the credibility of international economic agreements, in general, and monetary arrangements in particular. The focus is on European monetary arrangements, from the establishment of the European Monetary System to the crisis of the Euro-zone. The analysis is predicated around the political economy of Italy's access and permanence in the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). The author argues that the case of Italy, which made a concerted effort to join the EMU in the first wave, is particularly striking. Support for the single currency was widespread when it was introduced, yet something went wrong. Nowadays, its participation to the European monetary integration process cannot be easily taken for granted, especially after the vicissitudes of the Euro-zone crisis."--

The main motive of the Polish discourse on the economic future of the European Union remains undoubtedly the take-over of the Euro, to which Poland has committed in 2004 it joined the EU. Accession to the final stage of Economic and Monetary Union brings many advantages, but is also associated with costs. Among the advantages of the most often belong clearing the risk of price fluctuations, the reduction of transaction costs and the increased inflow of capital due to the stable economic situation. The disadvantages include the loss of autonomy in monetary policy and the resulting cohesive flexibility to respond to economic shocks and the risk of potential price increase after introduction of the community currency. The euro crisis has made a clear assessment of the advantages and disadvantages difficult. Adapted from the source document.

There have been numerous attempts to reform the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) after the Great Recession, however the reform success varies greatly among sub-fields. Additionally, the political science research community has engaged a diverse set of theory- driven explanations, causal mechanisms, and variables to explain respective reform success. This article takes stock of reform policies in the EMU from two angles. First, it outlines distinct theoretical approaches that seek to explain success and failure of reform proposals and second, it surveys how they explain policy output and policy outcome in four policy subfields: financial stabilization, economic governance, financial solidarity, and cooperative dissolution. Finally, the article develops a set of explanatory factors from the existing literature that will be used for a Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA).

Unlike many texts, the constitutive act of the Treaty instituting CEMAC contains no provision regarding the sovereignty of states. The CEMAC policies capture virtually all fundamental aspects of community life: legal integration; harmonization of economic, financial and monetary policies; convergence of budgetary policies; and the free circulation of goods, capital and persons. This article purports that communitarization entails ultimately the diminishing of the national sovereignties and, in spite of some limits, CEMAC is a step in the right direction. The existence of effective community organizations within the African zone can serve as catalysts to the larger and most needed African Union.

At the time of the election of the European Parliament (EP) in 2014, the European Union (EU) was heavily affected by a multifaceted crisis that had – and still has – far‐reaching implications for the political system of its member countries, but also for the European level of governance. Against the background of the strong Eurosceptic vote in the 2014 EP elections, this study aims to investigate in which way Eurosceptic parties of the left and the right respond to the multiple crises of the EU. Using data from the Euromanifesto Project from 2004/2009 and 2014, changes in the party positions towards the EU are analysed in the shadow of the multiple crises and the reasons thereof are explored. The findings show a general anti‐European shift among the two types of Eurosceptic parties. Nevertheless, the changes in the EU polity tone are not determined by issue‐based repercussions of the multiple crises, but by the EU‐related evaluation – the polity mood – of the national citizenry. For far‐right Eurosceptic parties, the shift is moderated by the level of public support for EU integration in their national environment. Among far‐left Eurosceptic parties, by contrast, it is moderated by the more specific public attitudes about the monetary union policy of the EU. Consequently, political parties when drafting their manifestos for EP elections are not so much guided by the objective severity of political problems or by the evaluations of these problems by the citizenry. What matters in the end is the link that citizens themselves are able to establish between the severity of political problems, on the one hand, and the responsibility of the EU for these problems on the other. This has important consequences for understanding of the nature and substance of political responsiveness within the EU system of multilevel governance.