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The article presents the current economic crisis from an historical perspective, analyzing the building of the monetary integration and the common currency. The process is explained pointing out its effects on the European integration and outlining the positive and negative consequences of the introduction of a common currency in the European Union. The investigation continues with a general outlook of the current situation of the countries more affected by the current crisis, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy. All of them have in common the necessity of extra funding in a context of austerity, plus some national particularities. The author proposes an expansion in the public spending as the only reliable way to stimulate the European economies in crisis. As the Euro meant the end of the monetary independence of the member states it is suggested an innovate solution, the creation of an Economic government in the Union in order to transfer funds from the wealthier states to the countries in troubles. Deeper integration is presented as a necessity for the states in crisis, a necessity for the wealthier states and a must for the European Union.

Eine moderate euroweite Inflationsrate in Höhe von etwa zwei Prozentpunkten seit Beginn der Europäischen Währungsunion (EWU) im Jahre 1999 bedeutet nicht, dass auch in jedem Mitgliedsland die Preise auf diesem Niveau wachsen. In den ersten Jahren waren die Inflationsdifferentiale innerhalb des Euroraums so gross, dass bspw. Irland das Maastrichter Kriterium für den Beitritt zur EWU, wonach die nationalen Inflationsraten um nicht mehr als 1,5 Prozentpunkte vom Durchschnitt der drei preisstabilsten Länder abweichen dürfen, regelmässig verfehlt hätte. Inflationsdifferenzen innerhalb von Währungsräumen sind nicht ungewöhnlich, wie der amerikanische oder deutsche Währungsraum zeigt. In der vorliegenden Diplomarbeit erfolgt zunächst eine Einführung in die Messung von Inflation und Inflationsdifferenzen. Anschliessend wird das Ausmass und die Entwicklung der Inflationsdifferentiale in der EWU dargestellt und mit der Entwicklung in anderen Währungsräumen verglichen. Abschliessend werden potentiellen Ursachen für die Inflationsdifferentiale in der EWU vorgestellt sowie deren empirische Bedeutung analysiert. Zum einen werden das spezielle Konstruktionsverfahren der nationalen HVPI sowie institutionelle Gründe in Form von staatlicher Preisadministrierung als mögliche Ursachen für die Inflationsdifferenzen identifiziert. Zum anderen kommen Konvergenzprozesse in Form von Nivellierungen von Preisdifferenzen auf den internationalen Gütermärkten bzw. aufholendem Wachstum in Niedrigeinkommensländern der EWU als denkbare Erklärungsansätze in Frage. Ausserdem wird die Bedeutung von strukturellen Unterschieden zwischen den Teilnahmeländern ausführlich untersucht, da diese in Verbindung mit makroökonomischen Schocks Inflationsdifferentiale verursachen können. Dabei wird auch die Rolle der Geldpolitik näher beleuchtet.

AbstractThe European Central Bank redistributes each year seigniorage from issuing euro notes to the National Central Banks of the euro countries. The key for this redistribution is, from 2008, based on the respective GDP and population proportions of the euro countries. Applying the distribution formula to the new EU countries from central and eastern Europe seems to give these countries a large net benefit compared with the seigniorage they bring in, i.e. their share of currency in circulation. However, as argued in this article, currency demand in the new EU member countries is expected to increase relative to the present group of euro countries – especially after gaining membership in the EMU because of integration of the financial markets and, in the longer term, catching‐up growth. Hence, it is doubtful whether a large unintended redistribution of seigniorage to the benefit of acceding EMU countries will materialize in the future.

AbstractEconomic theory has stressed the vulnerability to currency crises of intermediate exchange regimes. ERM II constitutes a fixed but adjustable pegged exchange rate arrangement and can therefore be categorized as an intermediate regime, in contrast to polar regimes such as currency boards and freely floating exchange rates. Our regression results for eight new EU Member States reveal the role of economic fundamentals in explaining exchange market pressure in these countries and confirm the bipolar view on exchange rate regimes. We conclude that the new EU members should not enter ERM II before their fundamentals are strong enough to compensate for the vulnerability of the exchange rate regime. Otherwise the condition for entering EMU, i.e. preceding participation in ERM II without devaluation or serious tensions on the exchange market, could be jeopardized.

The integration of European financial markets lags behind the integration of product & service markets with their quicker removal of trade barriers, & has suffered another setback with the adoption of the takeover directive in 2003/2004. The following analysis demonstrates that the removal of integration barriers is based on two cleavages: a party political conflict along the left-right axis & a distributional conflict between different national varieties of capitalism. The conflict between varieties of capitalism has greater explanatory power than the left-right conflict. The empirical chapter concentrates on the crucial vote on a comparatively liberal version of the takeover directive that took place in the European Parliament on July 4, 2001. It is argued that the creation of a single European financial market is unlikely -- at least in the short or mid term perspective. Tables, Figures, Appendixes, References. Adapted from the source document.