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From the EMS to the EMU and... to China

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  • Joseph Halevi

    (University College of Turin)

Abstract

This essay deals with the EMS experience and its failure, with the Maastricht Treaty, and with the interregnum leading to the formation of the EMU in 1999. The paper highlights the position of German authorities, showing that they were quite lucid about the fundamental weaknesses inherent in a process that separated monetary from fiscal policies by giving priority to the centralization of the former. Instead of repeating the well known critiques leveled against the EMU '96 for which readers are referred to the unsurpassed treatment by Stiglitz, the essay highlights the splintering of Europe in the way in which it has unfolded during the 1990s and in the first decade of the present millennium. In particular the early economic and political origins of the terminal crisis of Italy are located between the late 1980s and the 1990s. France is shown to belong increasingly to the so-called European periphery by virtue of a weakening industrial structure and persistent balance of payments deficits. The paper argues that France regains its central role by political means and through its weight as an active nuclear military power centered on maintaining its imperial interests and posture especially in Africa. The first decade of the present millennium is portrayed as the period in which a distinct German economic area had been formed in the midst of Europe with a strong drive to the east with an increasingly powerful gravitational pull towards the People '92s Republic of China.

Suggested Citation

  • Joseph Halevi, 2019. "From the EMS to the EMU and... to China," Working Papers Series 102, Institute for New Economic Thinking.
    • Handle: RePEc:thk:wpaper:102
    DOI: 10.36687/inetwp102
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    File URL: https://doi.org/10.36687/inetwp102
    File Function: First version, 2019
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dormois,Jean-Pierre, 2004. "The French Economy in the Twentieth Century," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521660921, October.
    2. Harald Hagemann & Heinz D. Kurz (ed.), 1998. "Political Economics in Retrospect," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 761.
    3. Dormois,Jean-Pierre, 2004. "The French Economy in the Twentieth Century," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521667876, October.
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    Cited by:

    1. Dario Guarascio & Jelena Reljic & Giacomo Cucignatto & Giuseppe Celi & Annamaria Simonazzi, 2023. "Between a rock and a hard place. Long-term drivers of EU structural vulnerability," Working Papers in Public Economics 237, University of Rome La Sapienza, Department of Economics and Law.
    2. Joseph Halevi, 2022. "Il neomercantilismo tedesco alla prova della guerra (German neo-mercantilism at the test of war)," Moneta e Credito, Economia civile, vol. 75(298), pages 203-211.
    3. Servaas Storm, 2021. "Labour's loss: Why macroeconomics matters," PSL Quarterly Review, Economia civile, vol. 74(299), pages 249-285.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    European Monetary System; Common Market; France; Germany; Italy; Netherlands; currency depreciation; European Monetary Union;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E02 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Institutions and the Macroeconomy
    • F02 - International Economics - - General - - - International Economic Order and Integration
    • F5 - International Economics - - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy
    • N14 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Europe: 1913-
    • N24 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - Europe: 1913-

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