The EMU, Monetary Crises, and the Single European Currency

Abstract

Europe’s economic integration will reach a higher stage with the creation of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). Daily, the media bombard us with reports and analyses which, due to their ideological and apologetic nature, are unable to uncover the contradictions marking this process. Thus, the sudden eruption of monetary crises, the last one having occurred in 1994–95, is ascribed to purely speculative capital movements; the inability by some (at the time of writing, almost all) member states to achieve the EMU convergence criteria seems to be caused only by lack of fiscal discipline; and the introduction of the single currency, the euro, is seen purely as a monetary operation. Analyses based on the labour theory of value, i.e. on the production and distribution of value, even though potentially much more fruitful, are few and far between. The purpose of this chapter is to contribute to the development of such an alternative view.

This is a revised version of the article first published in Capital and Class, Autumn 1997; No. 63, pp. 85–113.