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The Euro at 20: Successes, Problems, Progress and Threats

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  • Karl Whelan

Abstract

The euro has had a difficult second decade but the project has still had some important successes. The common currency is popular among the euro area’s citizens, intra-European exchange rate instability has been removed and the ECB has successfully achieved its primary goal of price stability. The single currency’s popularity has made the euro more resilient than many sceptics thought possible twenty years ago. A number of improvements to the architecture of EMU have been implemented in the past decade but serious tensions remain, relating to fiscal capacity, sovereign default and financial stability. To keep the euro together, Europe’s politicians need to make the euro area less crisis-prone and to make it easier for member states to recover from the inevitable cyclical downturns that will happen in the future. The past few years have seen many proposals put forward for future improvements to the economic policy structure underlying the euro. Keeping the euro together may depend on Europe’s politicians agreeing to implement them.

Suggested Citation

  • Karl Whelan, 2019. "The Euro at 20: Successes, Problems, Progress and Threats," Working Papers 201914, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucn:wpaper:201914
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10197/10795
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    Cited by:

    1. Helmut K. Anheier & Alexandru Filip, 2021. "The Dahrendorf Quandary, Crisis Severity, and Country Performance," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 12(3), pages 298-312, May.
    2. Philip R. Lane, 2021. "The Resilience of the Euro," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 35(2), pages 3-22, Spring.
    3. Milan Deskar-Škrbić & Davor Kunovac, 2020. "Twentieth Anniversary of the Euro: Why are Some Countries Still Not Willing to Join? Economists’ View," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 62(2), pages 242-262, June.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Euro; ECB; Single currency; Fiscal capacity; Financial stability; Economic policy structure;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
    • F45 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Macroeconomic Issues of Monetary Unions

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