Euro

Category: Eurozone 2013

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • Too Much Trust in EU Institutions

    The general impression is that the EMU zone (which gathers countries belonging to, or potentially belonging to, the euro) suffers from a crisis of trust. How can we move forward with European integration when people lack trust in EU institutions? The facts may however be quite different: there is too much trust in the EU…

  • 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,…

  • EMU Crisis, Barroso and the Inter-Institutional Balance

    The start of 2014 marks and important turn in the EU: the euro crisis seems over, everyone is getting ready for the ‘this time it is different’ election campaign for the European Parliament, and the EU has to come to grips with a new president and, possible, a new balance in the inter-institutional relations. It…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • Taking a Close Look at the Grand Coalition Talks: not so Grand on Europe?

    Berlin is heading towards a grand coalition between Chancellor Merkel’s CDU, her Bavarian sister party, the CSU, and the Social Democrats (SPD). After an election campaign in which European issues were strangely absent, surely the delegations that sat down a month after the elections had to get their teeth into Europe. By putting Europe on…

  • Pushing on a String: LTRO, Endogenous Money and the Eurozone Crisis

    (slightly wonkish, as Paul Krugman would put it) At a press conference about a month ago, the President of the ECB, Mr Mario Draghi, raised the possibility of a new round of LTRO (Long Term Refinancing Operation), which, for those less familiar with the topic, consist of large-scale, long-term, low-interest loans to commercial banks across…