The Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) in EMU urges governments to achieve a position close to balance or surplus over the medium term. So far, the fiscal framework has successfully contributed to the EMU public financial sustainability and may have contributed to financial stability, as well as to...

The Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) in EMU urges governments to achieve a position close to balance or surplus over the medium term. So far, the fiscal framework has successfully contributed to the EMU public financial sustainability and may have contributed to financial stability, as well as to...

This paper argues that the European Union has gone farther than any other country or institution in internalizing the prescriptions of the Washington Consensus. Embedding neo-liberal principles in the treaties defining its governance, the EU has enshrined a peculiar doctrine within its...

Since May 1, 2004 the European Union's new member states (NMS) have been subject to the same fiscal rules established in the Treaty on the European Union and Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) as the old member states (OMS). The NMS entered the EU running structural fiscal deficits. More than half...

This paper summarizes the results of CASE's research project on 'Strategies for Joining the EMU' and proposes policy recommendations both for new member states (on how to manage their accession to the Eurozone) and for the European Commission, ECB and old member states (on how to manage and...

This study shows that the origins of the sovereign debt crisis within the euro area are to be found within the private sector and in economic policy mistakes rather than only in the profligacy of some national governments in the Southern periphery of Euroland. Sovereign debtors and their private...