The Development of External Macroeconomic Imbalances in European Countries in Connection with Running Integration Processes[Vývoj vnějších makroekonomických nerovnováh v evropských zemích v souvislosti s probíhajícími integračními procesy]

In the course of the last decade, significant and persisting macroeconomic imbalances accumulated which there were one of the main causes of the economic crisis. The aim of the article is to evaluate the development of external macroeconomic imbalances in European countries in the course of the years 2004-2013, and to find out how this development in the member countries of the Eurozone differed from the European countries outside the Eurozone. External macroeconomic imbalances were defined on the basis of Macroeconomic Imbalances Procedure (MIP) Scoreboard. Based on the evaluation of the development of individual indicators, it is possible to state that till 2009 macroeconomic imbalances were more often seen in the countries outside the Eurozone and the Eurozone countries were characterised by bigger external stability. This trend changed for all the indicators after 2009 when the proportion of Eurozone countries in the number of the countries with an imbalance was higher than the proportion of the countries outside the Eurozone. From this point of view therefore the countries outside the Eurozone managed the crisis and post-crisis period better than the Eurozone countries, which could be a result of the possibility to use tools of autonomous monetary policy and the possibility to modify an exchange rate in the non-EMU countries and at the same time of the non-existence of adequate mechanisms which would compensate the loss of these tools in the EMU countries. The conclusions arrived at also do not support the Hypothesis of Integration Process Endogeneity which assumes growing mutual interconnection and economic alignment of the economies in time and in connection with the achievement of a qualitatively higher level of integration.