Providing a comprehensive and definitive account of the negotiations that led up to the agreement on Economic and Monetary Union at Maastricht in December 1991, this book examines the dynamics of the treaty negotiations.

This insider's guide to a topical issue is designed to be of use to students, academics, policymakers and commentators alike. It contains extracts from documents and a chronology.

This book explains the political background and describes the decision-making leading to European Monetary Union, as seen by a former central banker who participated in the process during more than two decades. Political rather than economic considerations were decisive in establishing EMU. French-German relations in particular form a thread that runs through the book, notably French efforts to replace German monetary domination by a form of decision-making France can influence. Thus, the issues involved are issues of power, though often presented in technical terms of economics.

The Road to Monetary Union analyses in non-technical language the process leading to adoption of a common currency for the European Union. The monetary union process involved different issues at different times and the contemporary global background mattered. The Element explains why monetary union was attempted and failed in the 1970s, and why the process was restarted in 1979, accelerated after 1992 and completed for a core group of EU members in 1999. It analyzes connections between eurozone membership and Greece's sovereign debt crisis. It concludes with analysis of how the eurozone works today and with discussion of its prospects for the 2020s. The approach is primarily economic, while acknowledging the role of politics (timing) and history (path dependence). A theme is to challenge simplistic ideas (e.g. that the euro has failed) with fuller analysis of competing pressures to shape the nature of monetary union.

The European Union is at a crossroads. This book analyzes the historical roots of the EU's monetary and financial institutions in order to better understand its struggle to maintain an economic and monetary union, as well as the ongoing problems facing the Euro. The institutions of the EU are based on the operation of free markets, a common monetary policy, and the European Central Bank. These founding policies have created many of the imbalances at the root of the ongoing European recession. Reemerging threats of populism and localism are poised to further disintegrate the European construction and may spark fierce opposition between countries. Acocella engages with these risks, suggesting detailed actions for reform within the EU and its institutions that may steer it away from further conflict, allowing it to better serve its member states and citizens.

When the European Monetary System (EMS) was created in 1978, economists on both sides of the Atlantic predicted its early failure. Today, EMS is alive and well, continuing to defy conventional economic wisdom. The authors address three major questions about the European Monetary System (EMS): how it came into being, how it works and how it may evolve into a fully-fledged monetary union.

The logic behind European monetary cooperation and integration can only be understood through an examination of French efforts to maximise their monetary power in relation to Germany and America. This book provides a detailed and historically-informed study of the motives and economic and political attitudes that shaped French policy on European developments over a thirty year period, from the collapse of the International Monetary System in the late 1960s and early 1970s through to the start of EMU on 1 January 1999.