Against the background of the euro-sceptic view many German economists expressed during the 1990ies and the traditional as well as modern debate on the optimum currency area the outcomes of the first ten years of the European Monetary Union are analysed. It is checked to what extent the concerns...

The ways of decision making within the EU have significantly changed in the last decades: the rule of unanimity has been more and more substituted by majority voting in order to speed up decision-making processes in a Union of 27 heterogeneous member states. A third possibility is now offered by...