From Monetary to Fiscal to Political Union: A Progression to Integration or a Recipe for Failure?

In this paper, we discuss the limits of the architecture of the euro from an economic point of view. We first highlight how the choice to create a monetary union was not supported by the accepted theory of optimal currency areas, and how its institutional set-up responded to a special and questionable view of the functioning of the economy, which recognized only a limited role to active macroeconomic policies. We continue by reconstructing the reasons for the emergence of the 2010–2011 debt crisis that can be traced back to the dynamics triggered by the single currency itself, and we highlight the role played by structural differences between various models of capitalism. Finally, we argue that the proposals currently on the table are by no means sufficient to correct the flaws in the European monetary architecture. The prospects are therefore pessimistic about the possibility of monetary union evolving towards a fiscal and political union.