The Road to Monetary Union in Europe

The move toward economic and monetary union is the most important issue facing the European nations today. A protagonist in the monetary affairs of the Community for more than a decade, the author assesses the opportunities and risks involved in the unification, and provides an indispensable guide to the complex issues and tangled recent history.

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Dr Padoa-Schioppa has provided an indispensable guide to the economic, political and diplomatic process of European movement towards union. The author has presented a lucid assessment of the opportunities and risks involved in economic and monetary integration, based on his twelve-year involvement in the heart of European monetary affairs. Tommaso Padoa Schioppa has brought together a selection of his papers and speeches, covering 1981-92, from his work as Deputy Director General of the Banca d'Italia, and has edited them thoroughly to illuminate the recent history of European integration. A central theme of his book is this belief that a group of sovereign countries cannot for long sustain free trade, unrestricted capital movement, fixed exchange rates and full autonomy of national macroeconomic policies, and so need to move towards a single currency. He discusses extensively such issues as the single currency, the tasks of a European central bank, the ECU, the role of budgetary rules, currency competition, and the relationship between EMU and political union.
The author has created an insider's guide to this topical issue for students, academics, policymakers and commentators alike. This book contains extracts from documents and an extensive chronology which will be of particular use for readers.