Abstract
The article analyses the political motivation that governed the different stages of the European monetary integration process, and in particular the set of circumstances that made possible the agreement realised in the Maastricht Treaty, which led to the creation of the European Monetary Union. It examines how, later, the European ideal gradually lost its gloss until we reached the current deep crisis.
The present Chapter was written before the ‘Brexit’ decision in the referendum of 23 June 2016.
Since June 2016 he is member of the Board of Directors of Banco de Portugal, the Portuguese central bank. The views expressed in the article are of his exclusive responsibility.2
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Notes
- 1.
Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Romania and Sweden.
- 2.
Contained in Protocols n. 11 and 12, annexed to the European Union Treaty.
- 3.
The date since when a single monetary policy governed by the Central European Bank has been in existence. The material circulation of the euro, however, only took place on 1st January 2002.
- 4.
The Single European Act, which entered into force on 1 July 1987 and brought about the first revision of the Treaty of Rome, did not have a relevant impact in the field of monetary integration, focusing on the objective of building the single market.
- 5.
- 6.
Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa added to this inconsistency the goal of free trade and called it “inconsistent quantet”.
- 7.
Even so, in the referendum of 20 September 1992 the “yes” vote to the Maastricht Treaty was given by a slim margin: 51.04 %, versus 48.96 % supporting “no”.
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Máximo dos Santos, L. (2017). European Monetary Union: Political Motivation. In: da Costa Cabral, N., Gonçalves, J., Cunha Rodrigues, N. (eds) The Euro and the Crisis. Financial and Monetary Policy Studies, vol 43. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45710-9_8
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