The article reviews the latest version of the proposal for a new Stability and Growth Pact of the European Union, as accepted by the European Parliament in April 2024. After summarising the main changes, the macroeconomic evaluation attempts to gauge whether the main goal of the Pact –...

This Convergence Report has been prepared following a request for a country examination submitted by Bulgaria on 25 February 2025. In producing this report, the ECB fulfils its requirement under Article 140 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to report to the Council of the...

This Convergence Report has been prepared following a request for a country examination submitted by Bulgaria on 25 February 2025. In producing this report, the ECB fulfils its requirement under Article 140 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to report to the Council of the...

The euro is meant to be the single currency of the European Union as a whole. It is currently used every day by around 350 million people in the 20 Member States of the euro area. The practical benefits include more stable prices, lower transaction costs for people and businesses, more...

The two groups of EU economies, the euro area and the non-euro area, are statistically analyzed taking into account the fulfillment of the euro area financial criteria and economic performance over the period 2000-2023. Compliance with financial criteria, economic performance, and their...

The introduction of a common currency in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has been the subject of extensive research over the past couple of decades, with extant issues ranging from viability and feasibility to sustainability of monetary integration in the region. This...

In 2020, in the context of the COVID-19 health crisis, the rules of the Stability and Growth Pact were temporarily suspended in the European Union. Nevertheless, the European Council and the European Parliament reached an agreement for the reactivation of these rules in 2024. A simple analytical...

The euro has already been introduced in 20 of the 27 EU Member States. This report examines six of the seven Member States that have yet to adopt the single currency, namely Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Sweden. These countries are committed under the Treaty on the...

The euro has already been introduced in 20 of the 27 EU Member States. This report examines six of the seven Member States that have yet to adopt the single currency, namely Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Sweden. These countries are committed under the Treaty on the...

This paper reviews the main arguments underpinning the reform of the EU's fiscal framework, which has culminated in the adoption by the EU legislators of a revised set of rules for the European economic governance including the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP). It takes a chronological approach...

Strengthening Europe’s sovereignty has become a much-debated policy goal. This paper adds three arguments to ongoing discussions. First, it is no coincidence that recent years have witnessed increasing debate around how to strengthen Europe’s sovereignty. The Maastricht-EU, Europe’s...

Economy integration among countries of the world is seen as a key to drive economic growth and development through favourable policies among members. The study examines the impact of a single currency on the economy of West Africa States. Findings show that gross domestic product growth rate,...

At the outset of the novel coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19), financial instability spread around the world. In response to potential euro funding stresses outside the euro area, on June 25, 2020, the European Central Bank (ECB) announced the Eurosystem Repo Facility for Central Banks (EUREP). The...

In this essay, we discuss the factors influencing the likelihood of convergence in corporate sustainability reporting. We identify several factors that negatively influence the probability of convergence in the short term. The first factor is the heterogeneity of concepts and definitions...

This study estimates the rate and distance to convergence of WAMZ Member States and provides a comparative analysis of nominal and real convergence to evaluate WAMZ's preparedness for monetary integration. We employ monthly data on the consumer price index and nominal exchange rate from January...

The COVID-19 pandemic has placed the European Monetary Union (EMU) in front of a new economic reality. All the health restrictions enforced at the EU level had repercussions on the real convergence of the Eurozone. In the present article, we aimed to observe how real convergence in the Euro area...

The introduction of a common currency in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has been the subject of extensive research over the past couple of decades, with extant issues ranging from viability and feasibility to sustainability of monetary integration in the region. This...

This paper discusses the future of the Stability and Growth Pact (hereafter SGP). Although Neoclassical economic models argue that strict fiscal and monetary rules minimize moral hazard and crowding out, in practice many governments adopt fiscal expansion (in recent years in the form of...

Real convergence performance in the EU was strong before the global financial crisis but the period following the crisis saw distinctly weakened catching-up processes. One of the major long-term factors for the convergence process in the EU is the Green Transition since it is expected to...

The aging of the population shakes the confidence in the economic viability of pay-as-you-go social security systems. We demonstrate how in a political-economy framework the shaken cofidence leads to the downsizing of the social security-system, and to the emergence of supplemental individual...

The entry delves into the debate on whether global cultural values and societal practices are converging or diverging. Grounded in the rationalist perspective, it argues that modern technology and industrialization drive convergence, making societies adopt similar attitudes and institutions....

Despite the significant academic interest in the economic cohesion, the various aspects of convergence and the ways they can be measured still remain theoretically unclear. These are issues of extreme political significance, especially for countries aspiring for EU and euro area membership. The...

Debt levels in the eurozone have reached new record highs. The member countries have tried to cushion the economic consequences of the corona pandemic with a massive increase in government spending. End of 2021 public debt in relation to GDP will approach 100% on average. There are various calls...

This paper examines the impact of budgetary institutions on public finances in the European Union on the basis of a critical survey of the relevant theoretical and empirical literature. In general, the authors find that fiscal institutions (namely fiscal rules) have successfully contributed to...

This paper begins by discussing the inherent conflict between the simultaneous existence of a single currency for the countries of the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and the independent fiscal policies of those countries. The Stability and Growth Pact was an attempt to reconcile that...