The European Monetary Union Europe at the Crossroads

The European Union is at a crossroads. This book analyzes the historical roots of the EU's monetary and financial institutions in order to better understand its struggle to maintain an economic and monetary union, as well as the ongoing problems facing the Euro. The institutions of the EU are based on the operation of free markets, a common monetary policy, and the European Central Bank. These founding policies have created many of the imbalances at the root of the ongoing European recession. Reemerging threats of populism and localism are poised to further disintegrate the European construction and may spark fierce opposition between countries. Acocella engages with these risks, suggesting detailed actions for reform within the EU and its institutions that may steer it away from further conflict, allowing it to better serve its member states and citizens.

Part I. The Historical and Institutional Background: 1. The Preparation of the European Economic and Monetary Union; 2. The Institutions of European Economic and Monetary Union; 3. Theoretical Foundations and Practical Interests Behind European Institutions; Part II. European Institutions in Action: 4. Asymmetries, Macroeconomic and Microeconomic Imbalances; 5. The Great Recession: How It Developed in Europe; 6. Policies and Institutions Put to the Test of the Great Recession; 7. Asymmetries, Imbalances, Signals and Incentives to Change; Part III. Lines of Reform of the EMU Institutions: 8. How to Reform the EU and EMU: Broad Outlines; 9. How to Reform the EU and EMU: Macroeconomic Instruments of the Common Strategy; 10. How to Reform the EU and EMU: Microeconomic Instruments of the Common Strategy ; 11. Conclusions. The Future of the Union: The EMU at a Crossroads.

Nicola Acocella is Emeritus of Economic Policy at the Sapienza University of Rome. He is the author of Rediscovering Economic Policy as a Discipline (Cambridge, 2018) and co-author of Macroeconomic Paradigms and Economic Policy (Cambridge, 2016), among other books.