Theoretical Considerations of a Single Currency

The advent of the single currency was a momentous event that, as the euro-zone crisis has illustrated, entailed profound consequences for people across the Continent and beyond. The euro has become the currency in which individual citizens are paid and denotes the price of all goods, services and labour across the whole eurozone. Most academic social science literature either accepts that closer EU integration is desirable or, more usually given the political will of EU leaders, that it is inevitable. Therefore, economists, political scientists and sociologists frequently devote their research to the dynamics of the eurozone, the political institutions fostering ‘ever-closer union’ and the social implications of these momentous changes. However, whilst such detailed analyses generate important policy proposals, they tend by their weight to obscure the crucial strategic issue: Is the eurozone beneficial or not for the EU as a whole? The purpose of this chapter is to analyse this issue. More specifically, it seeks to evaluate the criteria that have been advanced by different authorities to assess whether or not membership in the single currency would prove beneficial.