This article examines the institutional preconditions for stable financial integration in a 'theory of optimal financial areas' (OFA). This theory is modelled on the theory of optimal currency areas that has been used to inform the process of monetary integration. Where it differs from optimum...

Crisis: . . . 3. A vitally important or decisive stage in the progress of anything; a turning point; also, a state of affairs in which a decisive change for better or worse is imminent; now applied esp. in times of difficulty, insecurity, and suspense in politics or commerce. [Oxford English...

The global economic crisis has sapped support for the euro and lowered trust in the European Central Bank (ECB). In doing so, it has also exposed a weakness in the ‘output-oriented legitimation’ of Europe's economic and monetary union. The common monetary policy and single currency have to...

The process of European integration has reached the limits of European solidarity - both within the member states and between them. Increasingly, Europeans are demonstrating reluctance to accept common rules, to recognise common values, to protect common interests, or to promote common...

The Engines of European Integration. Delegation, Agency and Agenda-Setting in the EU, by M.A. Pollack Le Fait Regional et la Construction Europeenne, edited by M.T. Bitsch NATO, the European Union, and the Atlantic Community: The Transatlantic Bargain Reconsidered, by S.R. Sloan Privatisation in...

The European Union (EU) was supposed to make a great leap forward in 2003. In many ways, it did. The European Convention presented its draft constitutional treaty. The 10 candidate countries signed and ratified their treaties of accession, and the EU and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation...