The main causes of the current Euro crisis are: 1) its premature birth, before the earlier stages of political and fiscal integration, and integration of defense and foreign policy; 2) the diminished nature of the European Central Bank, which is not only independent, like the Fed, the Bank of...

Joining the 'Eurozone' - Economic and Monetary Union - is perceived as a very important step in the process of European integration. For the new members of the enlarged Union: Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Malta, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, participation in EMU is...

The fiscal regime of new EU member states is dictated by the Stability and Growth Pact by virtue of EU membership and, for EMU candidates such as all new EU members are supposed to become soon, by the Maastricht Treaty. Such dual fiscal regime is somewhat perverse: Maastricht conditions in the...

Conjectures about the post-crisis future of the global economy are path-dependent, i.e. they necessarily depend on the course of events envisaged for getting out of the crisis. By and large, the economic system emerging from the crisis is bound to be substantially very similar to the pre-crisis...