Not Only Economics: The Political Economy of Euro Adoption in Romania

The multifaceted interplay of economic and political factors in the process of euro adoption suggests the opportunity to take a political economy perspective on this complex issue. In this sense, a number of key political-economy related issues can be distilled in relation to the process of euro adoption, which will structure the following analysis. What are the key national winners and losers of this possible event? What role has interest groups pressure played in this process? Under what circumstances may bureaucracies such as the central bank body of experts act as a deterrent for the political end that is the single currency adoption? How are internationally exposed companies expected to behave and to promote their interests in relation to this event? What is the relative importance of the internal politics dynamic for euro adoption? We rely on process tracing to approach these questions for the Romanian case. Policy documents, newspaper articles, academic articles, economic indicators, and elite interviews are used to create an analytical narrative based both on a one-point-in-time description of the situation and on a timeline that lists the sequence of some relevant events. We argue that a specific combination of economic and political factors led to the failed euro adoption in Romania.