European Monetary Union has become a reality. However, many of the issues that were already controversially discussed in the run-up to the decision on the participating countries are still unresolved and merely displaced by day-to-day political business.
This is made clear in this volume, in which central challenges of integration policy are discussed from different professional and national perspectives. The topic of eastward enlargement is addressed, as is the question of what degree of political union a monetary union requires. Other contributions deal with the conflicting goals of the stability and employment pacts, in particular the deflationary or inflationary dangers posed by a strict or lax convergence and stability policy, as well as fundamental questions of the credibility of monetary policy.
The volume is rounded off by contributions on the distribution of Bundesbank profits and the role of banks in the preparation and final introduction of the EURO.
The anthology, which is based on two conferences of the Europa-Kolleg Hamburg, is aimed at all those in academia and practice who are concerned with questions of European integration and its future prospects.
