The Liberal Heart of Europe Essays in Memory of Alberto Giovannini

1. Introduction.- 2. Some Introductory Thoughts.- Part I. The European “Postwar Consensus” and the European Project.- 3. The Origins of the Idea of European Integration: A German Perspective.- 4. The European “Postwar Consensus” and the Birth of the EEC.- 5 “Large Switzerland” or “Large France”? The Ordoliberals and Early European Integration.- 6. Hayek’s Europe: The Austrian School and European Federalism.- 7. The Monnet Method and the Obsolescence of the EU.- Part II. The Evolution of the European Project in the 1980s: How Liberalisation Affected Europe.- 8. The Re-launching of European Integration in the 1980s, Ideas and Policies.- 9. Evaluating Mrs. Thatcher’s Reforms: Britain’s 1980s Economic Reform Program.- 10. The Rocky Road to European Monetary Union: A German Perspective.- Part III. Our Current Predicament.- 11. The Euro in Perspective.- 12. Dealing with the Covid Debt Overhang.- 13. Globalization and Its Critics.- 14. The Great Recession and the Future of the EU.

Francesco Giavazzi is Professor of Economics at Bocconi University in Milan, Italy, where he is Vice Chair of the University Advisory Council and was Deputy Rector (2000-2002). He was Visiting professor at MIT (2003-2013).

Francesco Lefebvre D'Ovidio is Professor of History of International Relations at Università “La Sapienza” in Rome, Italy, and Chairman of the Scientific Committee for the Publication of Documents on the Italian International Policies at the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation. He published a number of studies on international affairs, such as L'Italia e il sistema internazionale 1922-1929 (Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura), and edited several collections of Italian diplomatic documents, among which two volumes on La questione dell'Alto Adige/Südtirol 1964-1969 (Poligrafico dello Stato).

Alberto Mingardi is Associate Professor of History of Political Thought at IULM University of Milan, Italy. He is also Director General of Istituto Bruno Leoni, Italy’s free-market think tank (www.brunoleoni.it) which he helped establish in 2004. He is an Adjunct Scholar at the Cato Institute, Washington DC, USA. He holds a PhD in Political Science from University of Pavia, Italy.