As European integration continues, the future of EMU becomes ever more important. Can EMU help create an integrated European community, or will it prove a hindrance to the EU project? This book brings together the experts in the area to provide an interdisciplinary perspective on the issues expected to face EMU over the next few decades.

The launch of the Euro has already had profound effects on both European economies and societies - but it is also of huge importance for the international community as a whole. This timely book, from a collection of key names in European Integration Studies, is an authoritative piece of work that is truly multi-disciplinary by nature.

Abstract: The creation of EMU and the ECB has triggered a discussion of the future of EMU. Independent observers have pointed to a number of shortcomings or hazard areas' in the construction of EMU, such as the absence of a central lender of last resort function for EMU, the lack of a central authority supervising the financial systems of EMU, unclear and inconsistent policy guidelines for the ECB, the absence of central co-ordination of fiscal policies within EMU, unduly strict criteria for domestic debt and deficits, as set out in the Maastricht rules, in the face of asymmetric shocks, and Euroland as not an optimal' currency area. Do these 'flaws' represent major threats to the future of EMU? Or will they be successfully resolved by the European policy authorities, leading to a lasting and prosperous EMU? We provide answers to these questions by examining the historical record of monetary unions. We try to extract the key conditions for establishing and for maintaining monetary unions intact. Our main lesson from the history of monetary unions is that political factors will be the central determinants of the future of EMU. The 'economic' shortcomings of EMU will likely be overcome as long as political unity prevails within EMU

The aim of this book is to explore the preconditions of a European political economy. The establishment of the monetary union and the European Central Bank constitutes a major step towards greater economic, social and political integration between the Member States of the European Union, and is therefore a momentous event in European history. What do the historically given preconditions of a European political economy mean in practice and theory in terms of future possibilities? With a historical perspective on European monetary integration, from the strains in the dollar-based Bretton Woods order in the 1960s and earlier, the Werner Plan around 1970, and the internal market in the 1980s to the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, future prospects of EMU are discussed. The book is based on the reflections of a working group at the European University Institute in Florence in operation from 1999 to 2001. The fifteen chapters are organised in clusters on the historical and conceptual setting, on financial institutions and economic theory, on social practices and legal framework, and on future prospects. Historians, philosophers, economists, political scientists and sociologists contribute to this interdisciplinary attempt to come to terms with both the preconditions and the prospects of EMU. Contents: Lars Magnusson/Bo Strath: From the Werner Plan to the EMU: In Search of a European Political Economy. Historical Perspectives and Future Prospects--Hubert Zimmermann: The Fall of Bretton Woods and the Emergence of the Werner Plan--Amy Verdun: The Political Economy of the Werner and Delors Reports: Continuity amidst Change or Change amidst Continuity?--David Purdy: Economic Theory and Policy from theKeynesian Revolution to the Third Way--J. Peter Burgess/Bo Strath: Money and Political Economy: From the Werner Plan to the Delors Report and Beyond--Lars Magnusson/Jan Ottosson: The Political Transaction Costs of the Convergence Criteria--The EMU Compromise for the Delors Committee to Maastricht--Sheila C. Dow: The ECB, Banking, Monetary Policy and Unemployment--Roger Hammersland: - We are arrogant because we are good--A Critical Appraisal of Central Banking versus Fiscal Policy in Accomplishing the Community Wide Convergence of the 1980s and 1990s--Ole Bjorn Roste: Labour Markets and the EMU: The Cases of Norway and Sweden--Barbara MacLennan: Finance, Gender and Structural Change in the European Union--Ulrike Liebert: Constructing EMU: Euro-Scepticism and the Emerging European Public Space--Diamond Ashiagbor: EMU and the Shift from a - Social Policy Agenda to an - Employment Policy Agenda in European Labour Law--Ton Notermans: The Werner Plan as a Blueprint for EMU?--Jos de Beus: Are Third Way Social Democrats Friends or Enemies of European Integration? A Tocquevillian Tale on the Politics of Administration--David Purdy: Welfare Reform, Social Citizenship and European Integration--Robert Salais: Filling the Gap between Macroeconomic Policy and Situated Approaches to Employment. A Hidden Agenda for Europe?--Lars Magnusson/Bo Strath: Postscript."