Il disavanzo pubblico nell’Unione europea: quanto sono importanti i criteri di convergenza? - Government deficit in the European Union: How important are convergence criteria?

This paper is concerned with the question as to whether or not the deficit criteria of the Maastricht Treaty are a necessary precondition for entry into the monetary union. More specifically, the discussion is reduced to whether or not adhering to the timetable is more important than the strict fulfillment of the convergence criteria themselves while all the member countries except Greece have been successful in controlling inflation, exchange rate stability and the convergence of long—term interest rates, in the area of budgetary consolidation further improvements are still required. This is the reason why have restrict ourselves to providing answers to the following questions: are harmonized deficit restrictions economically justifiable? What relationship exists between these justifications and the establishment of a monetary union? In summary, the main convincing reason for the establishment of borrowing limits is the excessive borrowing incentive inherent to parliamentary democracies and the resulting undesirable intergenerational redistribution at the expense of future generations. But these reasons are completely independent of the creation of a monetary union. ‘The politically defined reference values for the deficit criteria have caused great consolidation efforts in all member countries of the European Union, which were hardly considered possible. In this light there is much reason to support the adherence to the time schedule and a generous interpretation of the budget policy values, which would be still in accordance with the Maastricht Treaty The monetary union could then begin on January 1, 1999, including all member states except Greece.