The European Union was institutionally ill-prepared to manage the 2007-2008 financial crisis, with an inadequate architecture for resolving problems within the European single financial market. Throughout the period 2007-2009 the situation in the EU has been characterised by a lingering lack of...

[Introduction ...] The aim of this paper is to discuss this issue in the light of recent experience. It is divided into five sections. In section 2, we briefly discuss the economic benefits of macroeconomic stability and the rationale for government policies playing an active role in delivering...

The euro area today consists of a competitive, moderately leveraged North and an uncompetitive, over-indebted South. Its main macroeconomic challenge is to carry out the adjustment required to restore the competitiveness of its southern part and eliminate its excessive public and private debt...

This paper discusses the introduction of new own resources to finance the EU budget. Currently roughly two thirds of the budget is financed from GNI-based own resources, which are essentially contributions made by the member states out of national tax revenues. While GNI resources are...

Eine Erweiterung der EU um Länder, die in ihrer wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung deutlich zurückliegen und deren Integration die Heterogenität der EU spürbar erhöht, verlangt nicht nur den potentiellen Neumitgliedern, sondern vor allem auch der EU erhebliche Reformanstrengungen ab. Ein...

The 'currency war', as it has become known, has three aspects: 1) the inflexible pegs of undervalued currencies; 2) recent attempts by floating exchange-rate countries to resist currency appreciation; 3) quantitative easing. Europe should primarily be concerned about the first issue, which...

Highlights: - The European Union growth agenda has become even more pressing because growth is needed to support public and private sector deleveraging, reduce the fragility of the banking sector, counter the falling behind of southern European countries and prove that Europe is still a...