The crisis of euro’s governance: institutional aspects and policy issues

The European Monetary Union is characterized by a crisis of governance, this has become more evident with the crisis of the euro which has shown the weaknesses of the European institutions and stressed the heterogeneity of member countries. The global financial crisis struck the euro area very severely because it coincided with the lack of appropriate policy tools to manage the crisis and with a period of weak political leadership which have made crisis management even harder. Europe needs to build the institutions of its monetary union to avoid similar crises in the future. But it is necessary a greater European integration, with a central fiscal entity at European level which requires a transfer of sovereignty from the individual Member States. This contribution first discusses the issue concerning rules and discretion in the governance of the euro. In the following section it describes the euro crisis and examines the remedies put in place, noting that despite the statements and the efforts of the European authorities the confidence in the euro is diminishing. Thus the exit of Greece from the euro or even the breakdown of the single currency has become a hypothesis discussed more frequently among economists, politicians, central bankers and businessmen. The last section of the work focuses on what’s wrong in the governance of the euro and examines the institutional aspects and the economic policy issues suggesting that the European integration serves to ensure the European citizens independence and protect their historical freedom, but also to influence and thus affect the choices from which may depend the future prosperity of European nations involved.