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Epilogue: The Euro as Historical Hubris
The euro is many things at once. Like all other currencies, it is a means of payment, a unit of account and a store of value. Since its inception, it is an attempt to challenge the hegemony of the US dollar as world currency. Insofar as it embodies the transfer of monetary and exchange rate…
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2013: A Year in the Crisis
So here we are in 2014. As this edition of the Euro Crisis blog draws to a close, it is time to say farewell to the readers and greet the new contributors who will take over and comment on the Euro zone crisis as it develops from here on in. Farewells are also an appropriate…
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A Not-So-Surprising Accession
On January 1st, 2014, the day on which the euro had its 15th birthday, Latvia became the 18th member of the eurozone. This accession was prepared over many years and Lithuania is scheduled to follow in 2015, but still this will have come as a surprise to many. Given the predicaments to which eurozone members,…
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What is EU Membership all About?
This is my last entry in the Eurozone 2013 blog. I want to conclude with some general remarks tackling what sounds like a rather innocent question and is the subject of a paper I am working on: What is EU membership all about? The question was put to me for a talk at a summer…
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Are we Living in a Post-EU Society?
There seems to be a paradox: whereas the euro crisis has enforced deeper integration, economic and political attention is shifting away from the EU. Europhiles blame the Eurosceptics but EU-watchers should be careful to follow simplistic reasoning. Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister Frans Timmermans has the reputation to be an EU-believer and was, among others, a…
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US Treasury versus Germany: New Controversies, Old Debates
You may have heard about the recent report by the US Treasury criticising Germany’s deflationary economic policies and their harmful effect on the global economy. And if so, you have probably also heard about the reaction that ensued on the part of the representatives of the German authorities, who retorted that there’s nothing wrong with…