The CFA franc devaluation on 11 January 1994 stands out as the most significant reform within the Franc Zone system since political independences of former African French colonies in 1960, yet a topic shrouded into profound taboo. So far, the economic literature has failed to draw any connection...

We provide an early assessment of the Juncker Commission's contributions to the ongoing reform of the euro area. In doing so, we present a chronological summary of the reform process up to 2014. At the time, the euro area architecture had undergone many changes. These were mainly focused on risk...

This essay deals with the EMS experience and its failure, with the Maastricht Treaty, and with the interregnum leading to the formation of the EMU in 1999. The paper highlights the position of German authorities, showing that they were quite lucid about the fundamental weaknesses inherent in a...

This essay deals with the contradictory dynamics that engulfed Europe from 1959 to 1979, the year of the launching of the European Monetary System. It focuses on how the macroeconomic frame-work of stop-go policies in the 1960s ended up privileging external – intra-European – exports at the...

Which ways and means are available for the macroeconomic and fiscal coordination and/or integration within the EMU-framework? Which are the pros and cons of these scenarios? This paper combines economic theory, empirical analysis and insights regarding EMU’s institutional history in order to...

As the ultimate date set for the commencement of the third stage of the European Monetary Union (EMU) and the adoption of the single currency approaches, technical, economic and political problems seem to grow in number and size. This paper focuses on one in particular: the regime governing the...

Which ways and means are available for the macroeconomic and fiscal coordination and/or integration within the EMU-framework? Which are the pros and cons of these scenarios? This paper combines economic theory, empirical analysis and insights regarding EMU's institutional history in order to...

The Eurocrisis displays an astonishing similarity to the causes of the Great Depression in the form of massive current account imbalances, destabilising capital flows, financial fragility, and the commitment to defending a fixed exchange rate arrangement by means of austerity and internal...

The launch of the EMS, far from being the result of deep economic thinking, was the somewhat unexpected outcome of political initiative. The rather casual economic debate that took place at the time is appraised by examining some problems that were at the centre of the negotiations in 1978. Some...

Economic history can offer an independent contribution to the analysis of the conditions of success and the mode of action of different types of monetary integration. Up to now, the debate about the functional mechanisms of monetary unions in the real world has ignored the Habsburg Monarchy. The...