From the very beginning of the European Monetary Union the crucial institutions, the European Commission and the European Central Bank, led by mainstream economic thinking, were not up to their task of controlling the core of the system effectively. A huge gap in competitiveness among the member...

At the height of the European sovereign debt crisis, the European Central Bank decided to purchase distressed European government bonds. Even worse, and more importantly, the ECB is providing direct support of several hundred billions of euros to troubled banks via its normal monetary policy...

Eight months ago, as the risk of sovereign default in Greece first emerged, the Intereconomics Forum invited a number of contributors to examine the options available to EU policymakers. As the threats to European Monetary Union resurface now, six of the same authors return in this issue's Forum...