Endgame for the Euro

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-x

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Bill Lucarelli

   Pages 1-9

3. Origins of the Single Currency

   • Bill Lucarelli

   Pages 10-23

4. EMU: The First Experiment

   • Bill Lucarelli

   Pages 24-37

5. The European Monetary System, 1979–87

   • Bill Lucarelli

   Pages 38-51

6. The German Ascendancy

   • Bill Lucarelli

   Pages 52-69

7. Project 1992

   • Bill Lucarelli

   Pages 70-87

8. The Maastricht Blueprint for EMU

   • Bill Lucarelli

   Pages 88-103

9. The European Debt Crisis

   • Bill Lucarelli

   Pages 104-122

10. The Break-Up of the Eurozone?

    • Bill Lucarelli

    Pages 123-138

11. Conclusion

    • Bill Lucarelli

    Pages 139-148

12. Back Matter

    Pages 149-170

    PDF

This text develops an original critical analysis of the origins and evolution of the euro and the current debt crisis that envelops the euro-zone. It provides a comprehensive critical historical narrative of the evolution of European Monetary Union (EMU). The history of the euro, culminating in the Maastricht blueprint in 1992, reveals that this deeply flawed monetary edifice was informed by the prevailing neoliberal/monetarist economic doctrines, favoured by Germany. The final blueprint witnessed the birth of an international currency which was devoid of a coherent sovereign power. The author's critique is informed by post-Keynesian theories of endogenous money. Lucarelli provides an essential contribution to the critique of the existing economic theories that continue to inform the evolution of the euro. In the absence of political union and a corresponding fiscal framework, the survival of the euro remains problematic. The imposition of harsh, neoliberal, austerity measures by the IMF/EU/ECB (Troika) on Europe's peripheral, deficit countries threaten the very existence of the euro-zone in its present form, and have set in motion powerful centrifugal forces, which could ultimately derail the entire post-war European project.

• design
• Euro
• Euro area
• European Debt Crisis
• European Monetary Union
• european union politics

• University of Western Sydney, Australia

  Bill Lucarelli

Dr. Bill Lucarelli is a Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Western Sydney, Australia, and has published 3 books: The Origin and Evolution of the Single Market in Europe in 1999, (Ashgate); Monopoly Capitalism in Crisis in 2004, (Palgrave Macmillan) and The Economics of Financial Turbulence in 2011 (Edward Elgar).

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